Oscar Peterson Quotes

It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.

I'm a musician and, just as the critics are hard on me, I'm hard on the critics.

If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.

I don't do something because I think it will sell 30 million albums. I couldn't care less. If it sells one, it sells one.

We're not like pop musicians who have to perform the same top ten tunes every night of a tour.

It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo.

He's not a performer, he's not a composer, he's not even a musician, but Norman Granz is Mr. Jazz.

First of all, I swore it was two people playing. When I finally admitted to myself that was one man, I gave up the piano for a month. I figured it was hopeless to practice.

I despair about the lack of proper respect shown for the piano. If you want it to sound like a traffic jam, go out in the street and forget the piano. That's not a piano sound.

I am the worlds laziest writer.

I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.

Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.