Jazz Quotes

Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

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.

I'm really getting to appreciate traditional jazz now - the New Orleans stuff - a lot more than I did before.

Blues and jazz pulled me away from what was left of my family.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

I don't regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I'm not a great player. I just like music. Drums 'n' bass is pretty exciting and I'd love to explore it.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout.

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

So the whole basis for jazz music is based on the fact that the bass player could not play his instrument.

I can imagine an utter hatred for the jazz avant-garde.

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.

My brother Leon started it all. He played the piano. In school they made me leader of the orchestra because I played the violin, but I followed Leon and the boys in his jazz band around.

I could do without 'cool' publications calling me 'mom jazz.' But I laughed all the way to the bank, baby.

You can't seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues - you can't seperate it. Because that's where it all started, and that's where it all come from - that's where I learned to keep rhythm - in church.

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I'm still and quiet inside, I'll begin. It's very personal; it has to be. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.