Roscoe Mitchell

Composer

1940-08-03

Quotes by Roscoe Mitchell

• If you listen to nature, all the sounds are done in a confident way. I'm trying to do that.

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• To be a good improviser, you have to study composition as a parallel. Because what improvisation is, on a high level, is spontaneous composition.

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• If you're playing with a number of people, there are all sorts of textures, all kinds of possibilities you can get into. So why just play a theme together and then take solos?

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• I like to hear melodies that go from one extreme to the next- saxophone to a bell to a whistle, for instance.

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• It wasn't until I got out of the Army and I heard Coltrane's record 'Coltrane,' when he was doing 'Inch Worm' and 'Out of This World,' that I thought, 'Oh my God, you can do that?' And then I thought, 'OK, I better go back and listen to Eric Dolphy a bit.' And then I said, 'Hmm, I better pull out these Ornette Coleman records.'

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