Jazz Quotes

Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.

My brother Leon started it all. He played the piano. In school they made me leader of the orchestra because I played the violin, but I followed Leon and the boys in his jazz band around.

I could do without 'cool' publications calling me 'mom jazz.' But I laughed all the way to the bank, baby.

You can't seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues - you can't seperate it. Because that's where it all started, and that's where it all come from - that's where I learned to keep rhythm - in church.

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

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.

There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else's language.

I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends.

I think the Flecktones are a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz.

Mars is really different, into art. Lydia Lunch is more energy. James Chance is more commercial in a different way, in funk and jazz. They were all doing original things, trying to create their own sound and music. I think they're all great.

Jazz tickles your muscles, symphonies stretch your soul.

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

If he's a true symphony artist, he knows better than that because he knows that the only truly creative musician is the jazz musician.

Well, I had started a program which is even longer running than this one in 1967 which was a jazz program called The Best of Jazz and that still goes out on Monday nights. That's been going for 33 years or something.

Where I grew up, Bob Wills and his western swing was very popular. And western swing is not that far from jazz and blues.

I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music.

The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.

I have been steadily exchanging a rock audience who were nervous about what they had just bought for a jazz audience who not only were happy with their purchase, but are increasingly coming again.

I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense.

Certainly one of the more common experiences in the jazz field is discovering someone new. Improvising musicians are capable of being musical travelers, voyagers. We want to join in on whatever we hear. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.

The French - they like jazz, they've been on jazz a long time.