Best 709 quotes in «jazz quotes» category

To hell with the rules. I'm going for the unknown.

To me, jazz is the closest thing to insanity that there is in music.

Tommy Dorsey would walk up to you if you had a tuxedo on and make sure you didn't have on white socks.

Trouble follows me wherever I go. Thing I'm in is just a sack o'woe.

To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra.

Trumpets! Can you bring your... uh... extracurricular tubing necessities next rehearsal?

Unlike anything heard before. This is jazz for the 21st century.

Up to the age of 14 I had not heard a note of anything before 1750, never heard a note of Bach, never heard anything after Wagner, and never heard any real jazz.

To me, nostalgia is nothing more than a mindless plundering of the past for the commonplace.

Trumpet players are just belligerant, and cocky, and you know, just hard-headed.

We all listened to a lot of recorded music, especially American jazz, modern jazz, and that's where our studies were and our inspiration came from.

Well, actually, I don't consider myself a jazz legend or anything.

We always talk about how everyone is unifocal. You can't possibly be interested in jazz and Beethoven. Of course you can. You can't both be reading a newspaper and be online. Of course you can. We shouldn't be obsessed with a gun to your head, 'You either read a newspaper or die!'

We're working as if it were going out of style-which of course it is.

What about a blues in W, in the key of W.

What are you going to do when you love music? You can't stop.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

What I like is not a particular genre, it's storytelling. There's a lot of great storytelling in jazz, and in folk and in country music.

What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth.

What I'm doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word - I love it.

What kills me is that everybody thinks I like Jazz.

What separates great jazz musicians from average ones is Taste. Those who have taste consistently choose notes, tempos, timbres and voicings that seduce and satisfy attentive listeners.

What was the competition? Well, I remember this Puerto Rican who came out in a short skirt and a gun.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules too complex, there's some sort of musical explosion.

Whenever there's a change with Jazz & its aesthetics, it's almost always reflected with a change in the culture.

Well, Grover Washington was my main influence and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

Well, I'm too old to pimp, and too young to die, so I'm just gonna keep playin'

Well if I could play like Wynton, I wouldn't play like Wynton.

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.

Well, jazz is to me, a complete lifestyle. It's bigger than a word. It's a much bigger force than just something that you can say. It's something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

We must be as pure as our music.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

We recorded to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records.

When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

When I joined the band I didn't know any of the tunes, and when I left the band I didn't know any of the tunes!

When I got pretty good I went on the road with a group. We starved.

When I sort of step in my jazz world, it's somewhere between instrumental jazz and vocal jazz.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

When rock music came in, I wasn't bitter about it. I was puzzled.

When I was doing jazz concerts in America, I would use the biggest names I could find.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it's composition.

When I discovered Mose Allison I felt I had discovered the missing link between jazz and blues

When you sing, always tell the truth.

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can't not be a musician.

Yes, I have been studying piano since I was six. Classical, jazz, compositional, Broadway, everything. I just love it all.

You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.

You can't make jazz without using certain elements of Latin music.

You can't teach it [jazz singing]. There's nobody who can teach you how to sing jazz. Either you know how to sing jazz, or you don't.

You don't have to live the blues to play the blues.