Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.

Modern European composers:have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of m…

A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and p…

Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than …

With Moondance, I wrote the melody first. I played the melody on a soprano sax and I knew I had a song so I wrote lyrics to go with the melody. That's the way …

I am a composer first and foremost, and have always believed that being able to write memorable melodies is what sets musicians apart. My songs bring images to…

Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory: nothing ca…