Best 709 quotes in «jazz quotes» category

I enjoy playing clubs. I still enjoy the closeness of the nightclub venue. However, after a certain period of time and after playing around some of the clubs in New YorkI felt that jazz should be presented in a more prestigious atmosphere.

I expect the audience to come up to my level.

If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.

If everyone liked what I did, I probably wouldn't be playing anything of depth.

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

If I'm not saying it in four choruses or less, then I'm not saying it.

I find as much inspiration from the forerunners of jazz as I do the modern-day innovators of jazz.

If it hadn't been for Jazz, there wouldn't be no rock and roll.

I find my inspiration in myself.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

If I was not a film-maker I'd probably be a musician. I like Kanye West, Jay-Z, R&B, classical, jazz and all kinds of music, but I'd say soulful World Music is my favorite.

If it wasn't for hustlers, gangsters & gamblers there'd be no Jazz. Wasn't middle~class who said Let's go hear Bird tonight.

If people don't like it [my music] now, they will.

If music is sound & came from silence, then silence is potentially greater than sound.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

If you believe, you will. If you don't, you won't.

If you become a teacher, by your pupils you'll be taught.

If the audience doesn't hear what is going on, is it going on?

If you asked people, "Do you like jazz?" they would be like, "not at all." But I think that if you're really putting yourself out there and really communicating, music can put you beyond people's preconceptions, beyond their playlist.

If you don't like Louis Armstrong, you don't know how to love.

If you don't know what it is, don't mess with it.

If you're in jazz and more than ten people like you, you're labeled commercial.

If you go back to the roots of jazz, it was all about COLLECTIVE improvisation.

If you keep your head in the sand, you don't know where the kick's coming from.

If you plan on continuing a tradition, it might be a good idea to find out just what tradition it is that you intend to continue.

If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.

If you're a young artist, wondering what to call yourself, consider 'multimedia artist.' It's so vague. Then, no one can say, 'Hey, how come you're a jazz person, and you're making a pop opera?

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

I got more publicity for not doing a festival than for doing the festival.

I grew up in the funk, rock and roll, blues and r&b tradition, and I came to this thing we call jazz later. And I came to improvise music from the standpoint of jazz; I was improvising, but within these other genres of music.

If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

I have a huge record and cd collection of all kinds of great classical, jazz and all music but I find the internet very accessible and quick.

I have a secret love of jazz.

I have a lot of albums yet to do.

I have a very varied taste in music. Everything from rap to classical to Latino to Rat Pack to jazz.

I have been influenced by the greatest artists in jazz, pop, reggae, traditional, ballards, pop, and all types of music, taking the best from each to represent my own personality. Whitney Houston, George Michaels, Sade, Phil Collins, and many others have influenced me.

I have been doing music all my life so everyday when I get up I expect music will be part of it.

I just can't stand it [jazz/rock]. It just doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't hit me...it doesn't get me...it just doesn't grab me.

I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows.

I just fell in love with the integrity of the music & that was it.

I keep reverting (to Duke Ellington), he to me is the greatest ever and my favorite jazz philosopher, as such.

I learn something new every day.

I knew even if I'm a cowboy, I'm going to be involved in jazz in some way.

I knew I could never be accepted as a straight-ahead jazz musician, nor would Iaccept myself as that. I would never be accepted as a minimalist. I wouldn't be adowntown composer. Because I find all orthodoxies, all doctrines to be ultimatelybanal.

I know of musicians who have played together for decades who hate each other. The Modern Jazz Quartet for one.

I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last.

I learned jazz; that comes from blues. I learned rock; that comes from blues. I learned pop; that comes from blues. Even dance, that comes from blues, with the answer-and-response.