As a jazz musician, you have individual power to create the sound. You also have a responsibility to function in the context of other people who have that power also.
I think that people should learn about that. In most music, there's one way that you do something, and that's the only way. In jazz, it's a lot different.
I played Big Band jazz music. I wasn't into rock and roll. I was just there because it was a living. I surprised everyone. I'm still surprising people.
Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music!
I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.
I progressed through so many different styles of music through my teen years, both as a player and a vocalist, particularly the jazz and pop of the early 20th Century.
I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit.
Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.
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.
We didn't go for music that sounded like blues, or jazz, or rock, or Led Zeppelin, or Rolling Stones. We didn't want to be like any of the other bands.
Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.
All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.
I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. ...
Streets paved with opal sadness, Lead me counterclockwise, to pockets of joy, And jazz.
The static’s nice. I could do without the screeching.” “Are you kidding? That’s the music of the spheres, commissar. It’s . Like old jazz.
I was curious and hungry at a young age, and jazz was such a mystery to me, an ocean where you can express yourself in the moment. It represented freedom, it represented wearing wings and going somewhere with music.
Jazz celebrates older generations and not just the youth movement. When you 'sell' only to people of a certain age, you get cut off from the main body of experience.
Ragtime has about the same amount of respect as comics. And in a way they're similar art forms. Ragtime is highly compositional, and the emotion in the music is built in, whereas in jazz a lot of that emotion comes from the way it's performed.
Yeah, sorry for not being all Betty Bad Ass; fighting isn't exactly a requirement for jazz singers.
The law don’t like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.
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.
