Jazz Quotes

The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.

I'm saddened to see that everyone's pitched out the baby with the bath, in that we say that it can't be one or the other, it could be both. I mean, just because we listen to classical music doesn't mean that we can't listen to jazz.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

Diana Krall knocks me out. I like jazz and I like her simple approach.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.

I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That's what I apply to everything.

The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record and they want to know which standards you're going to play. I'm saying let's break the formula.

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

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.

I like mellow music. I like some jazz. But I'm not a big hard rock guy.

I don't know if I have enough guts to do a whole standard jazz record.

I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That's what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.

I'm just trying to avoid any sort of generic kind of music - I don't want to do generic jazz or fusion.

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

Change is always happening. That's one of the wonderful things about jazz music.

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

As my career has progressed, I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest jazz cats on the planet. But that doesn't change my desire to entertain folks. That's really who I am.

I think Wes Montgomery is the greatest jazz guitarist that ever lived.

As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music.

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.

I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.

And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.

One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?

People have taken time out of their day and spent their money to come sit down at a concert. And it's jazz music-it's not easy for them to get to it. I don't want them ever to feel that I'm taking their presence lightly.

Personally, I think young musicians need to learn to play more than one style. Jazz can only enhance the classical side, and classical can only enhance the jazz. I started out playing classical, because you have to have that as a foundation.

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

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

I love jazz music and sad music. I'm a sentimental guy. I'm a romantic guy.

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.