Jazz famous quotes

I would like to be a scholar in whatever I do, a scholar is never finished, he is always seeking and I am always seeking.
-- Ahmad Jamal

#Music #Jazz #Scholar

Many fail to realize this great recording industry was built by so-called jazz artists. And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well.
-- Ahmad Jamal

#Music #Artist #Jazz

Lately I've been listening to some classical music again, some jazz.
-- Alan Vega

#Listening #Jazz #Classical Music

We must be as pure as our music.
-- Albert Ayler

#Music #Jazz #Jazz Music

If people don't like my music now, they will.
-- Albert Ayler

#Music #People #Jazz

Bebop was like humming along to Mitch Miller to me.
-- Albert Ayler

#Music #Bebop #Jazz

Pain can be washed out with a song. / Pain can become jazz digested and transformed.
-- Alexis De Veaux

#Song #Pain #Jazz

I was considered as a jazz man rather than as a blues player. There were no blues players-you played one sort of jazz of another sort of jazz.
-- Alexis Korner

#Player #Men #Jazz

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

#Jazz #My Family

I would say that jazz is my own language.
-- Amy Winehouse

#Jazz #Language

Jazz is the music of the body.
-- Anais Nin

#Body #Jazz

New York seems conducted by jazz, animated by it. It is essentially a city of rhythm.
-- Anais Nin

#New York #Cities #Jazz

Jazz has the ability to absorb & transform influences from diverse musical styles.
-- Andrew S. Gilbert

#Music #Style #Jazz

I listen to and I play all kinds of music, and I'm interested in jazz and in bluegrass - I like it all - but Cuban music speaks to me in a certain way.
-- Andy Garcia

#Play #Way #Jazz

Player for player, there’s 
no better working band in jazz than The Cookers.
-- Andy Gilbert

#Player #Band #Jazz

I was totally into jazz in my teens.
-- Andy Summers

#Teens #Jazz

I love many kinds of music: world music, jazz, classical, pop.
-- Anita Diament

#World #Jazz #Kind

Is jazz a rhythm, or is it a vibration?
-- Anthony Braxton

#Vibrations #Jazz #Rhythm

My work has been marginalized as far as the jazz-business complex is concerned, or the contemporary-music complex.
-- Anthony Braxton

#Jazz #Concerned #Contemporary

I am viewed as the Negro who has gone outside of the categories assigned to me.
-- Anthony Braxton

#Music #Gone #Jazz

Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.
-- Archie Shepp

#Culture #Jazz #Existential

Jazz washes away the dust of every day life.
-- Art Blakey

#Music #Dust #Jazz

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
-- Art Blakey

#Rocks #Church #Jazz

There's nothing wrong with it. It's only a word. What's in a name? Nothing! Cats say, "Call me Muhammed so-and-so. "
-- Art Blakey

#Cat #Names #Jazz

Who knows ... we'll be playing Jazz and having a good time!
-- Art Blakey

#Jazz #Good Times #Having A Good Time

If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet.
-- Art Blakey

#Feet #Jazz #Feels

I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.
-- Artie Shaw

#Thinking #Band #Jazz

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijiana, and will expire on cocaine.
-- Artie Shaw

#Bottles #Jazz #Whiskey

Jazz is the art of thinking out loud.
-- Barbara Januszkiewicz

#Art #Thinking #Jazz

Jazz can be a blank canvas full of possibilities.
-- Barbara Januszkiewicz

#Art #Jazz #Canvas

Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.
-- Barry Lyga

#Ideas #Jazz #Stalking

I grew up around jazz. I love jazz.
-- Baz Luhrmann

#Jazz #Grew Up #Grew

If it comes out sounding like Dixieland jazz or classical or punk or rock or even slightly metal, that's because that's where I'm going to find inspiration.
-- Ben Harper

#Inspiration #Rocks #Jazz

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

#Past #Together #Jazz

He's no Bill Clinton!
-- Benny Carter

#Bills #Jazz #Clinton

You have to look good.
-- Benny Goodman

#Looks #Jazz

Miles Davis fully embraced possibilities and delved into it. He was criticized heavily from the jazz side. He was supposed to be part of a tradition, but he didn't consider himself part of a tradition.
-- Bill Laswell

#Sides #Jazz #Tradition

I never sing a song the same way twice.
-- Billie Holiday

#Song #Way #Jazz

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
-- Billie Holiday

#Play #Singing #Jazz

That's the thing about jazz: it's free flowing, it comes from your soul.
-- Billy Crystal

#Soul #Comedy #Jazz

I think when I feel I'm at my best is when I'm on stage, and it's my version of jazz because it's just riffing or something.
-- Billy Crystal

#Thinking #Comedy #Jazz

It's something that - jazz is one of the few things that you can go and listen to, I don't care where you're from, what you are, what background you come from - there's something there for you.
-- Billy Higgins

#Care #Jazz #Backgrounds

The French - they like jazz, theyve been on jazz a long time.
-- Billy Higgins

#Long #Jazz

All music is beautiful.
-- Billy Strayhorn

#Music #Beautiful #Jazz

Jazz is America's classical music.
-- Billy Taylor

#Music #America #Jazz

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.
-- Bix Beiderbecke

#Song #Band #Jazz

I listen to Neil Young and jazz and classical stations and, if my girlfriend's driving, it tends to be Hall & Oates.
-- Black Francis

#Girlfriend #Jazz #Driving

In blues, classical and jazz, you get more revered with age.
-- Bonnie Raitt

#Age #Jazz

I am not a jazz singer. I wouldn't place myself on that footing. I wouldn't even enter that arena.
-- Boz Scaggs

#Singers #Arena #Jazz

I'm not a jazz singer.
-- Boz Scaggs

#Singers #Jazz

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

#Believe #Jazz #Kind

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

#Music #Jazz #Students

Jazz is so incestuous that it's starting to kill itself.
-- Branford Marsalis

#Music #Jazz #Starting

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

#Play #Albums #Jazz

It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.
-- Branford Marsalis

#Player #Jazz #Unfortunate

My D'Angelico is a jazz archtop guitar. That guitar was made for Glenn Miller's guitar player in 1939. It's a '39 D'Angelico New Yorker.
-- Brian Setzer

#Player #Guitar #Jazz

There's no future without the past and anybody who doesn't really understand where jazz has come from has no right to try to direct where it's going.
-- Cannonball Adderley

#Past #Trying #Jazz

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

#Dukes #Jazz #Philosopher

When you are studying jazz, the best thing to do is listen to records or listen to live music. It isn't as though you go to a teacher. You just listen as much as you can and absorb everything.
-- Carla Bley

#Teacher #Records #Jazz

I just got to hear every note. After I left Birdland, I started working at the Jazz Gallery. In the end, I still couldn't play, but I knew how to listen. I was probably the world's best listener.
-- Carla Bley

#Play #World #Jazz

I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It's not like I'm cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.
-- Carlos Santana

#Musician #Jazz #Shows

I have a secret love of jazz.
-- Carly Rae Jepsen

#Secret Love #Secret #Jazz

We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.
-- Carly Simon

#Musical #Jazz #Theater

You know I want to sing for people, I want to jazz people up I want to make new music that they've never heard.
-- Casey Abrams

#People #Want #Jazz

Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.
-- Cassandra Wilson

#Jazz #Form #Miles

I cringed when I heard myself described as a Jazz singer. I've always thought of myself as a Jazz vocalist.
-- Cassandra Wilson

#Music #Singers #Jazz

Jazz can be so serious, no sense of humor.
-- Chad Smith

#Serious #Jazz #Sense Of Humor

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.
-- Charles Mingus

#Music #Jazz #Emotion

Everything I do is Mingus.
-- Charles Mingus

#Jazz

Jazz is the language of the emotions.
-- Charles Mingus

#Jazz #Emotion #Language

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

#Als #Taste #Jazz

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.
-- Charlie Hunter

#Want #Jazz #Kind

You've got to learn your instrument.
-- Charlie Parker

#Jazz #Instruments

Bop is no love-child of jazz.
-- Charlie Parker

#Children #Bops #Jazz

Jazz was formerly a crude term for indulging in an action which in polite society is referred to, if at all, only with such vague Latin terms as intercourse and cohabitation.
-- Charlton Laird

#Latin #Cohabitation #Jazz

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

#Play #Jazz #Inspired

The type of band that I have now, the type of music that we're playing you either like it or you dislike it. If you dislike it, you probably don't know why. By the same token, you can't even really say why you like it.
-- Chico Hamilton

#Music #Band #Jazz

Personally, I can't see how anyone can produce any beautiful music out of being angry.
-- Chico Hamilton

#Music #Beautiful #Jazz

Here in England we live at a slower pace, have more time to enjoy things - like good jazz.
-- Chris Barber

#Pace #England #Jazz

Everything-everything-was communicated through the sound of the music. There were no other signals of any kind ever-no count-offs, head nods, spoken instructions...nothing.
-- Chuck Israels

#Music #Sound #Jazz

In 1994, I started touring again and I recorded two albums for Chesky Jazz.
-- Chuck Mangione

#Two #Albums #Jazz

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

#Pimp #Jazz #Young

I like rock music. I like jazz better, though.
-- Clarke Peters

#Rocks #Jazz #Rock Music

It's always fun to talk about jazz.
-- Clint Eastwood

#Fun #Jazz

I wouldn't really say I'm a jazz guy, which I'm not.
-- Creed Bratton

#Guy #Jazz

So I went into jazz and performed in jazz clubs all over the country.
-- Cy Coleman

#Country #Clubs #Jazz

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.
-- Cyndi Lauper

#Rocks #Answers #Jazz

I like to go hear jazz late-night up in Harlem.
-- Daniel Boulud

#Night #Jazz #Late Night

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.
-- Dave Brubeck

#Piano #Orchestra #Jazz

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.
-- Dave Brubeck

#Discipline #Jazz

The worst thing about the life of a jazz musician on the road is getting to the gig. Once you're there and playing, it's marvelous.
-- Dave Brubeck

#Musician #Gigs #Jazz

Jazz stands for freedom.
-- Dave Brubeck

#Jazz

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.
-- Dave Brubeck

#Musician #Jazz #Perfectionist

My own Brubeck Institute in California is turning out fantastic young jazz players, and I know great things will happen.
-- Dave Brubeck

#Player #California #Jazz

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

#Cowboy #Way #Jazz

Phil Robson is a disturbingly good jazz guitar player!
-- Dave Liebman

#Player #Guitar #Jazz

There is nothing new... everything has roots in the past.
-- Dave Liebman

#Past #Roots #Jazz

I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician.
-- Dave Van Ronk

#Cutting #Musician #Jazz

Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz.
-- Dave Van Ronk

#Heart #Bebop #Jazz

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.
-- Dave Van Ronk

#Musician #Helping #Jazz