Jazz Quotes · Page 50

I got into trad jazz, then modern jazz, then avant-garde jazz, between the ages of 16 to 18.

— Roy Harper

Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was.

— Nina Simone

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

— Sonny Rollins

There are no natural barriers. It's all music. It's either hip or it ain't.

— Lee Morgan

Clifford Brown was in the jazz circles considered to be probably the greatest trumpet player who ever lived.

— Herb Alpert

We all have to open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to try and arrive at something new…

— Horace Silver

I knew even if I'm a cowboy, I'm going to be involved in jazz in some way.

— Dave Brubeck

Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz.

— Dave Van Ronk

I've sung a whole lot of jazz. It's my favorite style of music to sing. People don't realize it, because they're so…

— Brian Stokes Mitchell

I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was…

— Mose Allison

I wanted to look at the mentality that can breed that sort of intensity, that kind of cutthroat, pressure-cooker feeling, especially a…

— Damien Chazelle

Jazz infers a style, but creative music has a wider field and wider specification about it. We know it from people like…

— Wadada Leo Smith

I grew up in Shanghai 'til I was 10 or 11, with one year in Tibet. When I was 5 or 6…

— Peter Max

If I had to look at 'Now He Sings'... from outside myself, I see it as a natural part of the growth…

— Chick Corea

I've never heard anything Wynton [Marsalis] played sound like it meant anything at all. Wynton has no voice and no presence. His…

— Keith Jarrett

Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is…

— John Lurie

I actually had a really nice guitar as a teenager. I took jazz guitar, so my mom bought me this probably $1,600…

— Mac DeMarco

There's something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It's…

— Keith Richards

Of course when you are a kid you listen to what your parents had around. A lot of gospel, jazz. Now when…

— Jorma Kaukonen

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's…

— Pat Metheny

I've always loved black culture; I don't know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music…

— Robert Greene

The hardest thing about being a young musician on the jazz scene is that there are so many styles of music, jazz…

— Dave Kikoski

Jazz is not a game of chance. Its sonorous disorder is only an appearance. It is an organized force obeying obscure laws,…

— Wanda Landowska

Jazz is really about the human experience. It’s about the ability of human beings to take the worst of circumstances and struggles…

— Herbie Hancock

The day of the great Jazz improviser who doesn't know how to read music is over.

— Maynard Ferguson

My goal is to bring jazz and classical music to my generation through a more accessible road.

— Laufey

I never liked blues and I really didn’t like jazz. I liked Chuck Berry.

— Johnny Ramone

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

— Wynton Marsalis

If you're gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.

— Joan Baez

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

— Stan Getz

Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of…

— Oscar Peterson

I don't differentiate between country, rock, blues, jazz, it doesn't mean anything to me.

— Everlast

One very fundamental thing has not changed and I realized that it will never change... is that I really need to go…

— Pat Metheny

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

— Daveed Diggs

I missed jazz, kind of. And by the time I came to it in life, it was too intimidating to enjoy thoroughly.

— Warren Zevon

I like the idea of an eclectic approach, incorporating jazz with other forms and other genres of music.

— Herbie Hancock

As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe.

— Jim Coleman

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

— Miles Davis

“Butterfly upon my hand, A voice of wonder within my mind, not my own but the butterfly's.”

— Jazz Feylynn

Sounds of daily life are musical. I try to absorb the intricacies of sounds as if I were listening to music.

— Tom Harrell