"I just feel like bands always need to work harder than the hardest working band. You need to constantly be one-upping yourself and surprising yourself at how hard that you'll work and devote yourself to your craft."

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I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crystal, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie's big band - all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature.

— Ernest Gaines