Jazz Quotes

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.

I have a bachelor's and a master's in jazz.

A friend told me he'd risen above jazz. I leave him there.

My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.

I feel like certain people think that certain styles of music will taint their jazz style.

I love to hear the note sing.

I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

I've learnt new scales through playing different types of music, like Indian raga scales, gipsy scales and harmonically-based jazz scales.

The wonderful thing about Jazz is its willingness to take chances.

The whole reason for Jazz at the Philharmonic was to take it to places where I could break down segregation.

So the whole basis for jazz music is based on the fact that the bass player could not play his instrument.

It's the repetitive thing that brings space. That's one of the things I love secretly about hip-hop. Jazz doesn't have that element. It changes every bar, nothing is ever the same.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

After I exhausted the blues thing, I got into jazz.

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

I'm concerned with trend. I don't know where jazz fans will come from 20 years from now.

The economic picture in the States today doesn't allow for jazz concerts in a tour fashion. People now are too used to the Festival, which gives them more names for the same price.

I'm really getting to appreciate traditional jazz now - the New Orleans stuff - a lot more than I did before.

The jazz trombone is a magical experience particularly to hear and listen too.

Improvisation in the jazz sense - like the business sense - is not formless. It is built on a skill set. Jazz, for example, involves selecting a tune.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

I like to know for whom I'm writing - it makes the composition easier to do.

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation.

A jazz beat is a dynamic changing rhythm.

Fortune ought to be a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master.

I'm talking about noise rock. I don't think that noise rock element belongs in jazz. It's not for me anyway; it just doesn't fit.

On set, the playground for the character, how much it takes varies. Is it like ballet, is it like jazz? The content always lends itself to the form, and it's really not mathematics.

I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music.

Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

The public, hearing pop music, is, without knowing it, also soaking up jazz.

Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.

I can turn on some jazz guitarist, and he won't do a thing for me, if he's not playing electrically. But Jeff Beck's great to listen to.

Whenever there's a change with Jazz & its aesthetics, it's almost always reflected with a change in the culture.

Jazz is such a powerful cultural statement that it's almost as if it's intertwined with society.

I don't regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I'm not a great player. I just like music. Drums 'n' bass is pretty exciting and I'd love to explore it.

To me, nostalgia is nothing more than a mindless plundering of the past for the commonplace.

I learn something new every day.

Jazz is my adventure.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

I find my inspiration in myself.

Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.

I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

Trombone virtuoso and innovative composer, Papo combines the best of jazz and Latin music to create a genre that is unique and wild. He's redefined Latin jazz!

Jazz has an audience all around the globe and has had for many decades, I think speaking of the United States, let's say that what we need is more of an official recognition.

If income was directly proportional to technical proficiency and education, classical and jazz musicians would be some of the most affluent people in the world.