Best 709 quotes in «jazz quotes» category

Sometimes there are no gigs, but the main thing is the music. You can't take that away. The only person who can take that away from you is you.

So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.

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

Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.

Steve Marcus was one of the greatest saxophonists in all of music. He truly was able to unite jazz with the popular music of the time.

Tastes are created by the business interests. How else can you explain the popularity of Al Hirt?

Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style.

Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.

The more real you get, the more unreal everything else is.

Ted Lewis could make the clarinet talk. What it said was put me back in the case!

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your magnificent indifference.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

That's the exact concept behind the music: to take that kind of, I guess whatever you want to call it, jazz sensibility - but not have it be about solos.

That's the jazz that I like - the stuff that has a soothing effect.

That's what it is-it's jazz. It's just jazz. That's what the whole thing is about to me. It's about what's happening right now in this context. This conversation is jazz to a certain extent. It's improvisation. What appeals to me about music is the improvization. That's what I don't like about the media-they're not living it.

The bandstand is a sacred place.

The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.

The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.

The iconoclastic mode, that specific mode of language, there is an element of it that it is punk - that is confrontational. That's just a part of the language of jazz - at a certain point.

The jazz and blues clubs are like the jazz and blues musicians - they're disappearing.

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

The music becomes something that is its own entity.

The only reason is that I hadn't seen The Modern Jazz Quartet perform live and a live performance is often where the real experience of jazz takes place. I'm not familiar with the Boswell Sisters.

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

There are a million good tunes.

There are notes between notes, you know.

There are three virtuous styles of music; classical, jazz and heavy metal. I do love classical music but I don't listen to it much anymore and I never listen to metal, so I am not very interested in music that is difficult to play.

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

The challenge to the improvisor is to get permanence into his spontaneity. The challenge to the composer is to get spontaneity into his permanence.

The day of the great Jazz improviser who doesn't know how to read music is over.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

The jazz musician's function is to feel.

The jazz band's chief stimulus, of course, was the rise of the negro 'blues' and their exploitation by the negro song-writer, W. C. Handy.

The most common misconception about me is that I'm basically a jazz singer.

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.

There are no natural barriers. It's all music. It's either hip or it ain't.

There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.

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.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

There’s no such thing as a wrong note.

There is nothing new... everything has roots in the past.

There's a richness to the old works if you look before the 1950s. The chord progressions and the language was more complicated, especially in the jazz and classical world.

There's more bad music in jazz than any other form. Maybe that's because the audience doesn't really know what's happening.

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

There's so much music out there & so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

There's only two ways to sum up music; either it's good or it's bad. If it's good you don't mess about it, you just enjoy it.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.