Jazz Quotes

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

Well, Grover Washington was my main influence and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain, so much beauty of raw emotion and passion.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

I was blessed to work with The Jazz Messengers when the two piano players were Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.

Jazz vision for me is seeing my art in musical term. It offers me an visual expressions in an ever-changing musical palette.

I like to say, jazz music is kind of like my musical equivalent of comfort food. You know, it's always where I go back to when I just want to feel sort of grounded.

My mother was a jazz fanatic and she wanted me to play the piano so I could play jazz tunes. I wish I had learned but I was too busy getting into trouble!

My early influences were the Shadows, who were an English instrumental band. They basically got me into playing and later on I got into blues and jazz players. I liked Clapton when he was with John Mayall. I really liked that period.

To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

Some people are born with a brain that has this weird, magical mathematical thing that makes them an amazing jazz musician.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

Live action writers will give you a structure, but who the hell is talking about structure? Animation is closer to jazz than some kind of classical stage structure.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

Orchestras are not used to playing the kind of stuff jazz musicians like to play. It requires a lot of rehearsal and recording time, so it's much easier to do on a synth or sampler. So, we came up with that idea.

I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.

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.

I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.

I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era.

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.

I put out a recording of me singing mostly jazz because I wanted people to know I'm coming from a jazz background.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.

My favorite type of music to sing to would be rock and roll, Tenacious D, Led Zeppelin, some Queen - I love all of them. I love singing to them because they're all just great voices. I love listening to very obscure jazz.

I'm reserved, so I've always needed to find a way of opening up. Jazz helped me do that.