David Sanborn Quotes

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David Sanborn

Profession : Musician

Birth : July 30, 1945

Music is an expression of individuality; it's how you see the world. All art is, for that matter. You take how you experience the world, interpret it, and send it out there - express it - whether it's sculpture, dance or singing.

David Sanborn

Music is like an open sky. You know it's out there... and there you are.

David Sanborn

Everyone goes through the ups and downs of living - fretting about the future, worrying about what happened. Music teaches us how to be in the moment.

David Sanborn

I was actually in an iron lung for about a year, and then I was paralysed from the neck down for another year after that. So I spent a lotta time just lying down as a kid. And some of my earliest memories from then are of listening to the radio.

David Sanborn

You're only as good as your last record.

David Sanborn

Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.

David Sanborn

I'm moved by a lot of different kinds of music, whether it's pop music or R&B or straight-ahead jazz or free or opera or music from all parts of the world.

David Sanborn

Well, I guess my unease with that is... I'm always a little uneasy with that phrase - smooth jazz, as opposed to what?

David Sanborn

Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, you take all the drama out of it.

David Sanborn

To me, the object of practicing is to allow you to play what you hear. But you're always hearing new things, so you never get to the end of it.

David Sanborn

Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave well enough alone. And that's a lifelong quest.

David Sanborn

Music is just kind of an expression of who I am. It's what I do.

David Sanborn

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn.

David Sanborn

In regard to music, I just think that it's always best to have an attitude of being a perpetual student and always look to learn something new about music, because there's always something new to learn. Don't dismiss something out of hand because you think it's either beneath you or outside of the realm of where your interests lie.

David Sanborn

I always wanna be in the process of evolving and growing.

David Sanborn

When you're on stage, unless you surrender to the moment, you're not telling the truth. I look for people that tell me the truth.

David Sanborn

Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.

David Sanborn

When I was 17 or 18 and it was time to figure out what to do with my life, I realized that I didn't enjoy anything as much as I enjoyed playing music. I felt that I had no choice: that I had to become a musician.

David Sanborn

I think that, given a real choice, people would like to hear something interesting, not something bland and right down the middle.

David Sanborn

It's always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn't. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it's music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic... You're pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I'm a musician.

David Sanborn