Ray Brown Good Quotations

We had to do a lot of rehearsals to get it so that it was playable. What it did was make you practice. That's good for any musician to have that kind of pressure. It brings things out of you that might not come out if you don't have to reach for something all the time.

It's going to be important to set the tempo in these football games because we have to establish some sort of pace, and we did a good job of that this past Sunday, how we came out and ran the football and really put some pressure on the defense. And our defense, I think, really fed off that. I think our team this past week really felt connected in that we fed off each other and really got into a good flow.

There's a formula to this and somehow we've tended to get away from it, and it caused us to lose six ballgames. But if we can maintain this next week, we've got a good chance of winning.

Well, I think that I've been learning how to, attempting to learn how to write for a trio. I've sort of taken a page out of Duke Ellington's book. I watched Ellington over the years and it didn't matter who got in that band, he found out what they could do good and then he wrote for them.

They did a great job of scheming. I was surprised at some of the looks we got. They filled (the gaps) a different way with their linebackers that we didn't anticipate. I don't think we did a good job of adjusting.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a few bad days in practice. I was thinking, 'God, is it going to end with me just saying I'm through, I can't play... in a Thursday practice?' I just thought, 'I'm sore, I'm tired, I can't make it to Friday.' And sure enough, I come back Friday and have a good day.

He just wished me good luck. For him to give me that letter, man, that just made me feel good.