Jazz Quotes

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.

I think jazz is a wonderful learning tool.

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'm basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good keyboard player. People think I think I'm good. I think I'm a very poor piano player.

I'm not really a country singer, although I did make a couple albums and love its simple, straight-from-the-heart approach, but I have always sung a lot of jazz, show tunes, pop tunes, gospel and blues.

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

They always say that jazz doesn't sell, but it's a lie, because it does sell, and it sells consistently year in and year out.

I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.

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.

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

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.

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