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A first love always occupies a special place.

Lee Konitz

A lot of bands were doing remotes from ballrooms around the country.

Lee Konitz

After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

Lee Konitz

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.

Lee Konitz

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

Lee Konitz

Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.

Lee Konitz

I always felt as a horn player, a jam session wasn't satisfying enough for me. I should have been a rhythm section player, actually.

Lee Konitz

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.

Lee Konitz

I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.

Lee Konitz

I hear many extra-musical things somehow in Coltrane.

Lee Konitz

I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.

Lee Konitz

I listen to classical music very much. There's a lot of jazz that I don't enjoy listening to.

Lee Konitz

I love Indian music very much, but I haven't studied that specifically.

Lee Konitz

I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

Lee Konitz

I wish that person outside would stop coughing.

Lee Konitz

I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.

Lee Konitz

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.

Lee Konitz

It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.

Lee Konitz

It's very demanding to make up your own music.

Lee Konitz

Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.

Lee Konitz