Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued withthe same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.
I was in New York, miserable because I was working supper clubs but I wasn't expressing myself. I was really unhappy with my life. I saw Max Roach again and he told me I didn't have to do things like that. He made me an honest woman on the stage. I have been performing in that tradition since. I feel that I'm a serious performer now whereas then I wanted to be but I didn't know how.
The technical history of modern harmony is a history of growth of toleration by the human ear of chords that at first sounded discordant and senseless to the main body of contemporary professional musicians.
There is a fault common to all singers. When they're among friends and are asked to sing they don't want to, and when they're not asked to sing they never stop.
When God created Man, he gave him Music as a language different from all other languages. And early man sang his glory in the wilderness; and drew the hearts of kings and moved them from their thrones.
The House
...She lays her beams in music,
In music everyone,
To the cadence of the whirling world
Which dances around the sun-
That so they shall not be displaced
By lapses or by wars,
But for the love of happy souls
Outlive the newest stars.