I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link th...
And I used to listen to a lot of jazz.
I have a bachelor's and a master's in jazz.
Bach was a top harmonist geezer, which is why the jazz cats love him.
Jazz was uplifted by what I did.
Jazz was my first love.
And I like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. Th...
The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do s...
I listened so hard because it felt like, while she was telling me stories, she was massaging my soul, letting me know that I was not alone, that I will never have to be alone, that there are friends and family and churches and coffee shops. I was not...
...to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovabl...
I don't think I'm modest so much as I'm realistic. I know what I can do and what I can't do. I know what I am, and more importantly, I know what I'm not. I'm not really a major innovator; I don't know if I contribute to the language of the saxophone ...
The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.
I was totally into jazz in my teens.
Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.
I was exposed to jazz early on.
Jazz is about being in the moment.
Jazz is rhythm and meaning.
In jazz, there is a lot of European influence harmonically.
On the radio I listen to the easy-listening stations, the jazz stations.
If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.
Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.
