Jazz Quotes

The history of all big jazz bands shows was, first they played for dancing, and then they played for singing.

If it comes out sounding like Dixieland jazz or classical or punk or rock or even slightly metal, that's because that's where I'm going to find inspiration.

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians.

Rock and roll mainly but I can play passable jazz also.

My folks have played everything from rock, disco, pop, funk, and blues. My dad has always brought and played different genres like jazz, classical, and Latin. With all this in my pocket, I feel I have a taste of everything for my influences.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

I lie around the floor with my cats Billy and Jazz or watch DVDs with my best friends.

There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time.

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

Growing up, I was very much interested in jazz music.

We didn't go for music that sounded like blues, or jazz, or rock, or Led Zeppelin, or Rolling Stones. We didn't want to be like any of the other bands.

I think that people should learn about that. In most music, there's one way that you do something, and that's the only way. In jazz, it's a lot different.

I love that pre-mod jazz look of the late Fifties, the Steve McQueen style that influenced the British modernists.

The whole rise of new adult contemporary music and smooth jazz was a nice surprise.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

Well, jazz is to me, a complete lifestyle. It's bigger than a word. It's a much bigger force than just something that you can say. It's something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

There's the tradition in jazz of having the Battle of the Bands, and you do not want to get your head cut when you're playing.

Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.

I don't like freedom jazz - I think it's void of roots and void of foundation.

From blood banking to the modern subway, from jazz to social justice, the contributions of African Americans have shaped and molded and influenced our national culture and our national character.

The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline commercials represent.

Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with jazz was that there were too few groups.

I was really small when jazz broke through in England and I can still remember sneaking off to the living room to listen to it on the radio - much to my parent's disapproval.

I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I was totally into jazz in my teens.

You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.

I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.

Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it.