For your edification and amusement, a small selection of quotes by Bill Dixon taken from the 2nd rehearsal of the Sound Vision Orchestra in the basement of the Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City on June 19th, 2007.
"There's something more interesting about the process than the final product"
"How does someone put something on the page and then how do the variations emerge?"
"How many of you have heard Rex Stewart...live?"
"Even more than facility, you have to have an identifiable sound"
"The ones that defined this music weren't going to get an MBA"
"I would have given an arm to play in the Ellington band"
"This sound that we will make, no one else can make - this sound belongs to this group"
"When you play, you must understand that's all you - you should make that as pronounced as you can"
"the lowliest musician has power whether its James Brown selling 20,000 records a month or James Blow selling 20 a year--they are equal. There is parity"
"You are who you are. Students used to say to me 'I want to play like Charlie Parker.' I would tell them 'you can't.' You don't want to live like Charlie Parker--how are you going to play like Charlie Parker? Charlie Parker didn't want to live like Charlie Parker"
"I don't want an exact precision"
"I never want a (musical) device if I can avoid it"
"You have to pretend this is your first crack at playing the drums, forget about sticking patterns"
"Molti molti ani fa"
"No accuracy in terms of notes - a shape"
"Music should not be suffered through. If its a chore, you should be headed to Wall Street"
"You can only be who you are, you should be proud of who you are or you should change who you are" "There is no room for thinking in the act of music"
"You practice to forget"
"Do we have a storyline here?"
"You have to be careful about idiomatic things related to the instrument"
"you have to be willing to take a chance"
"We are 16 people in search of a larger instrument"
"Keep your eyes --all four of them-- on me, not on the music"
"Whatever you get you have to use"
"I'm not dictatorial about telling you what to do by flapping my arms and generally I don't like that sort of physical activity"
"I don't give a damn what you do, just so we end up at the same place. you can play 1/4 for all I care just as long as we end up at the same place" Dixon to Garrison on Intents and Purposes re: 6/4 and 4/4 time.
"I would rather not be arithmetical, I'd rather the ensemble feel that"
"I don't want success, I want adventure"
"I hope my music doesn't torture people - I hope people sit on the end of their seat"
"Sometimes what you know can stand in the way"
"History as constraint"
"ALL MUSIC IS EQUAL"
