Quotes

[on film studio orchestras] It has often been remarked that the sight-reading ability of these orchestras was legendary, and I have to add my voice to that existing chorus. These players were genuinely amazing. They would show up each morning, utterly unaware of what it was they were expected to record that day. It could have been a score by Alex North or Bernard Herrmann, or David Raksin or Miklos Rozsa, or just as easily a Tom and Jerry cartoon or a dance number for Fred Astaire. They would casually glance at the parts on their stands, the ink still wet, and would proceed to play with the same expert disdain a professional parking lot attendant uses to back a new convertible into a tight space.

The 1990 teenagers feel that they have coined both the term 'cool' and the mannerisms that illustrate the word, but they are in fact a good thirty-five years too late to claim that invention.

I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully. Their friendships are not governed by advancement through social contact, and tend to be governed by a very simple rule: If they like the way you play,and if they believe you to be a nice fellow, then fine. If one of those elements is badly missing, forget it.

[on working for MGM] I loved the studio. I loved the way it smelled, I was crazy about Indians in the lunchroom, and Romans making phone calls, and the highly charged and technically dazzling music making on the recording stage. Most of all I loved being a part of it, a part of a peculiar fraternity, belittled and superior at the same time, envied for all the wrong reasons and commiserated with for the stuff we all took in our stride.

[on scoring movies] When I composed, I heard my music played by the orchestra within days of completion of the score. No master at a conservatory, no matter how revered, can teach as much by verbal criticism as can a cold and analytical hearing of one's own music being played. I would mentally tick the results as they came at me: that was pretty good, you can use that device again, that was awful, too thick, that mixture makes the woodwinds disappear, that's a good balance, and so on.

[on ex-wife Mia Farrow] Once you're her friend, on whatever level, you can count on her for the rest of your life.

I don't care where I am. I compose.

Oh, get away from me, you and your jerky questions, you bloody fool!