Jazz Quotes

I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era.

There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians.

I put out a recording of me singing mostly jazz because I wanted people to know I'm coming from a jazz background.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.

My favorite type of music to sing to would be rock and roll, Tenacious D, Led Zeppelin, some Queen - I love all of them. I love singing to them because they're all just great voices. I love listening to very obscure jazz.

I'm reserved, so I've always needed to find a way of opening up. Jazz helped me do that.

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

Blues and jazz pulled me away from what was left of my family.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

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.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout.

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

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

I can imagine an utter hatred for the jazz avant-garde.

I think my knowledge of music theory is rooted in jazz theory, and a lot of the writers of standards - Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin.

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.

In fact, jazz has such a great feeling and great emotional content that it really doesn't require you to have technical understanding of it. I think you just have to allow your feelings to go with the music and you will find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.

Everything we did, we did live - and then Bobby took it home and chopped it up and edited it. Which is pretty much what they did with every jazz record you've ever heard.

I've been working on something, just some jazz, relaxed stuff. It will be standard, just piano and voice. It started out as a fun project for me though, I'm still not sure about releasing it.

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I'm still and quiet inside, I'll begin. It's very personal; it has to be. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor.

Shoes are a big part of your look. I think that if your outfit isn't really something special, then fun footwear is a great way to jazz it up and make your ensemble more interesting.

I missed jazz, kind of. And by the time I came to it in life, it was too intimidating to enjoy thoroughly.