It seems the activity of expressing sound to do with music has just started blooming - and because of that, the beginners feel like they're professionals, and the professionals feel like they are beginners, which is very healthy. Ornette Coleman More Quotes by Ornette Coleman More Quotes From Ornette Coleman All the things that human beings suffer from are how their environment treats them, and how the elements of their planet affects their mind and body--like radiation, cancer, and all. Ornette Coleman cancer suffering mind Sound has no parents. Ornette Coleman parent sound Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer. Ornette Coleman composer people thinking I mean, if you decided to go out today and get you an instrument and do whatever it is that you do, no one can tell you how you're going to do it but when you do it. Ornette Coleman instruments today mean Only America makes you feel that everybody wants to be like you. That's what success is: Everybody wants to be like you. Ornette Coleman like-you want america I'm having this conversation with you now. I'm talking, but I'm thinking, feeling, smelling, and moving. Yet I'm concentrating on what you're saying. So that means there's more things going on in the body than just the present thing that the person's got you doing. Ornette Coleman moving-on mean thinking I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. 'Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles. Ornette Coleman new-orleans hair long Musicians tell me, if what I'm doing is right, they should never have gone to school. Ornette Coleman musician gone school It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression. Ornette Coleman labels different expression To me, human existence exists on a multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional level, not just having to be identified with what you do and what you say. Ornette Coleman existence levels two I don't really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I'd like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness. Ornette Coleman musician kind thinking After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that's how I ended up just being a saxophone player. Ornette Coleman hard-times player writing I asked my mother could I have an instrument. She said, 'Well if you go out and save your money.' So I went and got - I made me a shine box. I went out and started shining shoes, and I'd bring whatever I made. Ornette Coleman shoes shining mother Most of my relationships have been like that - with record companies. I've never had a legitimate business relationship with a company. I've always had a personal relationship with someone in the company. Ornette Coleman business-relationship company records The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is. Ornette Coleman argument jazz music No one has to learn to spell to talk, right? You see a little kid holding a conversation with an adult. He probably doesn't know the words he's saying, but he knows where to fit them to make what he's thinking logical to what you're saying. Ornette Coleman adults kids thinking I don't know what they're thinking about. Just because someone says, 'I like what you do' or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I've had that experience with record companies. Ornette Coleman records might thinking I remember once I read a book on mental illness and there was a nurse that had gotten sick. Do you know what she died from? From worrying about the mental patients not being able to get their food. She became a mental patient. Ornette Coleman nursing nurse book I decided, if I'm going to be poor and black and all, the least thing I'm going to do is to try and find out who I am. I created everything about me. Ornette Coleman music who-i-am discovery I would like to play for audiences who are not using my music to stimulate their sex organs. Ornette Coleman audience play sex
