Musicians Quotes

I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene.

A lot of my friends are struggling musicians. Being a struggling actor, it's just frustrating because you're not allowed to do what you want to do.

After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz.

There's a reason I moved to NYC, and if I listed all the musicians on my list you'd grow weary.

From the time I moved to San Francisco in 1967 to play with the Steve Miller Band, there was a lot of support in the music community for one cause or another, but this one was special because it was put on by people who understood where musicians' hearts are.

Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like.

Well I'm a third-generation musician. My Grandfather's a musician and my father and mother were both musicians and so I'm a musician. It was just natural that I should be a musician 'cause I was born into the family.

The best rock musicians are the most exciting people in the world.

There are more bad musicians than there is bad music.

The thing with me. I can't stick musicians. I've thought about this. I can't stand them, and being stuck in a studio with them I think that's my strength I can hear what they can't.

Working with Benny was important for me and for black musicians in general.

I didn't write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn't.

I'm glad about what's happening to the music business. This last crop of people we had in the 90s, who are going away now, they didn't like music. They didn't trust musicians. They wanted something else from it.

The public is usually slow to catch on to new things, and it's important that musicians stick to their guns and not look for that instant gratification.

I am constantly being told that I have been a big influence for many people, including other musicians.

Well, remember that we were all members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

I think that musicians should never forget about the intimacy of bringing two people together, and the aesthetic transference where you're almost vicariously involved in a romance between other people.

The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.

Since I started composing I have always worked with series of tempos, even superimposed the music of different groups of musicians, of singers, instrumentalists who play and sing in different tempos simultaneously and then meet every now and then in the same tempo.

When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

There's a lot of good musicians who are unheard of. Get it down before they pass away.

I thought I had swell ideas, and wonderful musicians, but the hell of it, no one else did.

I was never worried that synthesizers would replace musicians. First of all, you have to be a musician in order to make music with a synthesizer.

Musicians always come off sounding a little bit pretentious, and a little bit... I don't know, hypocritical, from what they do, talking about strong issues.

The Civil Rights for Musicians Act is about economic justice for African American artists. It's about what's right. And it's about time.

Musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever's going on in that particular culture. It's the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something and watch the scenery around you.

People are afraid to ask musicians to be involved in projects because they anticipate being turned down. Young artists hesitate before contacting me. People in my position don't get approached often enough.

These people are artists. These people are musicians. They're taking it out and trying to express it that way.

Every musical movement that is big enough has to produce some good musicians who wouldn't have had the incentive to start playing without it.