Jazz Quotes

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

You need better technique than I have to play jazz, but what you have to do is the same thing, isn't it?

I'm a great jazz fan.

You know, it's funny... when you're making money, people don't think you're playing jazz. Now when you're not making money, people think that you're a good jazz musician.

My mother is a singer, still performs today; she's a jazz singer.

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.

I suppose subconsciously I was thinking in terms of having the scale of it matching the scale of the images. Hence the sort of string quartet, jazz band and electronic stuff.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

You're not going to hear me do a rap song, you're not going to hear me do a jazz song. We have to be true to our roots, do what we do, and try to do it a little better each time.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.

My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.

I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about jazz.

I've been dancing my entire life. Jazz, hip hop, ballet. And then there's tap dancing. I love to tap.

What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.

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.

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 listen to jazz and gospel... yeah that's basically what I listen to.