Bill Dixon
Bill Dixon
Bill Dixonwas an American musician, composer, visual artist, and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in the free jazz movement. He played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano, often using electronic delay and reverberation as part of his trumpet playing...
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth5 October 1925
remember-who-you-are different imagine
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.
beautiful pain people
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.
groups possibility realms
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.
careers people different
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.
player magic want
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.
cheating thinking people
I think people who sample are cheating. It is like people who do collages. Use all of your own stuff.
past trying succeed
Whatever I do, I attempt to do it fully. I try, and don't always succeed, to be thorough. There are musicians who do not know their worth, and if they knew it at one time, it has eluded them. I know my worth. You try not to dwell in the past.
Fear is the biggest motivator.
altar american-musician dreams generation men menial sacrificed
I come from a generation where the dreams and aspirations of a whole lot of young men were sacrificed at the altar of getting some kind of menial job.
american-musician college hours light music orchestras performed seen tape
I have hundreds of hours of this music on tape performed by orchestras at the college that, as I said, have never seen the light of any other day.
artistic cauldron cultural entered incredible music recording start study time until york
I did not make my first recording until I was 37... I did not even start to study music until I was 20... I entered music at a time when New York was this cauldron of incredible artistic and cultural activity.
american-musician appeared coltrane filled forward maintained motion music void work
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.
access charlie music national needs next parker people process selection trying witness
The next Charlie Parker is out there somewhere. He is not in one of these schools. He is not getting any of these grants. This music desperately needs to be subsidized so that the people who are trying to do something and have no access can have access to something. I was on one of the National Endowment Panels some years ago and it was an eye-opener to actually witness the selection process in operation.
bomb caps explosive looked pipe squad walked
I walked up on a pipe that had two end caps on it. It looked like a pipe bomb to me, so I told the officers, they called the bomb and arson squad out, and they just detonated it and it was an explosive device.