19 Quotes by Horace Silver

Musical composition should bring happiness and joy to people and make them forget their troubles.

I'm shooting for longevity. The road is hard on your body.

I had the house rhythm section at a club called the Sundown in Hartford. Stan Getz came up and played with us.

I personally do not believe in politics, hatred, or anger in my musical composition.

The ensemble playing is as clean as a whistle. The band plays in tune and with dynamics. Also, there is some fine arranging and orchestrating going on here, and the soloists perform at top level.

Jazz is not background music.

Basically my influences have been American influences. It's been blues, gospel, swing era music, bebop music, Broadway show music, classical music. It's like making a stew. You put all these various ingredients in it. You season it with this. You put that in it. You put the other in it. You mix it all up and it comes out something neat, something that you created.

They didn't dictate to me as to what kind of music that they wanted me to play or what tunes, what musicians that I was going to use. They let me do my thing. That's one reason I stayed there for twenty-eight years.

We all have to open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to try and arrive at something new and different.