“What makes a note wrong is when you don’t know where to go after that one. As long as you know how to get to the next note, there’s no such thing as a wrong note. You hit any note you want and it fits in any chord.”

Your quote is a lot more elegant and succinct, though, John. Of course, who knows who really said it first!

Your comment reminds me of a saying in jazz something to the effect of no matter what note you play, if you aren’t on a note that works, you are always at most only a half-step away from a note that does work.

It’s quite noteworthy, I think, how “tonal” these old jazz recordings sound, while they are often using every note from the chromatic scale in a short span of time. It goes to show that it’s not the notes you use, but how you organize them.