Jazz Quotes

Just figure out what you think jazz is, and then if it fits into that category, it's jazz, and if it doesn't, it isn't. It's no big deal.

Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

I think we as a band, as individuals, understand that all popular music stems from blues and jazz and even pop, but rock 'n' roll especially comes from blues.

Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.

To me, Bill's musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.

Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing.

Jazz vision is a wordless conversation between musical notes and visual expressions.

It was the early days of Rock 'n' Roll in this country. We were all struggling to learn music, it might be Country, Jazz, Classical, Blues or even Rock 'n' Roll.

I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.

I've gone the full spectrum - from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop - and the public has accepted what I've done through it all. I think it means I've been doing something right at the right time.

I like all kinds of music, though I tend to prefer jazz and classics.

What I see for the band by the end of this year is the Complex live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I want my guys to be comfortable. I'm certainly not in this for the money, but I'd really like to see my guys make some money off of this stuff.

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.

Coltrane would do what you'd get a Roland Pro Tools module to do but with a group of jazz musicians.

I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.

Even though I left for a year, I grew here as a Jazz man. If I'm fortunate enough to go into the Hall of Fame, I will go as a Jazz man.

Music is a huge part of my life, I enjoy every genre of music from jazz to country, and I even get down with a bit of hip hop.

I was considered as a jazz man rather than as a blues player. There were no blues players-you played one sort of jazz of another sort of jazz.

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.

The way that I got involved with microtonal music was, frankly, through jazz.

My personal trainer is an ex-dancer so we do a lot of ballet and jazz.

When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else.

I love music, I love all kinds of music, particularly jazz. Jazz is an extension of America. There's no other country in the world that could have produced jazz.

I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

That's the thing about jazz: it's free flowing, it comes from your soul.

If you met my dad, I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But, Coldcut, they're based in the U.K. I'm a big fan of jazz music, so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

Jazz is about being in the moment.