Quotes by Bill Dixon

• My career has been different from most people, but I knew what I was not going to do. I knew I was not going to be controlled. I knew there was a price for this, but I did not know there was as large a price as it turned out to be.
• Rock musicians, and a vast array of popular-music musicians, due to their wealth, acquired through the mass of their notoriety, are able to be listened to and heard and thus are able to effect change on an international level.
• Most of my recorded material has been in small group configurations. I have not released large orchestral works as recordings because it hasn't been within the realm of possibility.
• Interested listeners have only to hear the recording to find out if those guys, who go to such pains to undervalue my work, are right. All people have to do is listen to realize it is a beautiful record.
• In the middle 1940s... I heard everyone live. Painting, the theater; everything was happening. It was an exciting time when New York was the place to be.
• If you are you, 24 hours a day, then you do not have to remember who you are supposed to be in different situations - something that I imagine could be troublesome.
• If I produce it, I will stage it as a performance. A small audience will be invited; rehearsals of the sections will be done in the mornings, and those sections will be recorded in the afternoons.
• I think people who sample are cheating. It is like people who do collages. Use all of your own stuff.
• I have no distributor... it is indicative to me that there are these pockets of players and collectors all over. You should see the correspondence I get from over the world letting me know how significant they think I am. I know that wherever I go, I am well received.
• I have been using delay and reverberation since the middle 1960s. I use them to make what is almost inaudible to the ear, audible. I do not use them to play loudly but to make the higher harmonics heard.
• I have been going to Italy since 1980, but I always went to do work. I did not live overseas, because I do not like running around with everything I own in a paper bag.
• The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.
• I do not, as a rule, do encores. When I have finished playing, I have indeed finished playing. I have nothing left; there has been no reserve.
• If I had money, I would like to get an old building, have music performances, do lithographs, have shows of paintings, and do those things that I'm interested in doing.
• While everyone has a right to his or her opinion, the people who are informed have more of a right.
• Whether I get adequate attention or not, people here do know the work I have been doing systematically and without compromise for over 40 years. I get tired of people making excuses for guys who don't continue the art because they can't make a living.
• When Coltrane died, a void appeared in this music that has not been filled yet. He maintained a forward motion in his work and did not look back.