Jazz Quotes · Page 12

He would forget everybody's name, so everybody was called 'Pops'.

— Helen Forrest

Rather than say I play Jazz, I simply say I play music.

— Kenny Garrett

I think of myself as a complete mystery. To myself.

— Sun Ra

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do.

— Billie Holiday

I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.

— Skitch Henderson

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

— Ginger Baker

If you don't like Louis Armstrong, you don't know how to love.

— Mahalia Jackson

Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

— Cecil Taylor

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

— Miroslav Vitous

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is…

— Pat Metheny

I got my first set of drums when I was around 3. I went from band to marching band to Latin jazz…

— Jeremih

'Amores Perros' is rock, '21 Grams' is jazz, 'Babel' is an opera, and 'Biutiful' is a requiem.

— Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I always say that the problem with jazz accessibility is not the content of the music, it's people's ability to access it.

— Esperanza Spalding

I like jazz but actually I didn't love it enough to study it for four years. It was boring.

— Tom Misch

At a time when individualism is becoming an endangered species, jazz represents a celebration of the individual.

— Ellis Marsalis, Jr

One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open.

— Herbie Hancock

Our intention is to not only attract the hardcore jazz fan, but we're doing it in such a way that it will…

— Ramsey Lewis

I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it's…

— Steve Earle

It's almost worse because you think that you're mature and classic when you're in the newsie cap jazz phase. It's not a…

— Nick Kroll

I think cool originates with the jazz culture in the '40s. There was probably cool before that, but that's when people started…

— Alissa Quart

Though the Jazz Age continued, it became less and less of an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children's party…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

People like to compartmentalise music, especially African-American music, but it's really one thing. One very wide thing. I mean, it's like all…

— Kamasi Washington

Jazz is capable of doing much more than depicting the dope fiend and the drunk and the slinky gal. In our show…

— Henry Mancini

Clint Eastwood said, the only things America has contributed to civilization are the western and jazz. And I don't think westerns are…

— Robert Wyatt

There's no appreciation for the giants [of jazz]; there's never been a major film on Duke Ellington , never a major film…

— Randy Weston

You know, as kids were weren't jazz musicians or anything. But, the circle of friends and the neighborhood I lived in, we…

— John Petrucci

Switch to piano! No. Really, if you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human…

— Stan Getz

I love classical music, but I hated classical guitar. But I like flamenco, because there was something else there going on. It…

— Joe Satriani

I'd much prefer to hear somebody like Ed Thigpen [drummer with New York session group Stuff, and featured on innumerable hits] take…

— Van Morrison

Monk was a gentle person, gentle and beautiful, but he was strong as an ox. And if I had ever said something…

— Miles Davis

I think the other thing that's important is getting to a place, which very, very rarely happens with improvising groups, where somebody…

— Brian Eno

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy…

— Patti Smith

Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

— Thelonious Monk

Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft

— John Coltrane

There is no art without intention.

— Duke Ellington

I've met a lot of jazz musicians in my day, and they're all funny.

— Tommy Chong

Is jazz a rhythm, or is it a vibration?

— Anthony Braxton

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.

— Carmen McRae

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

— Martin Scorsese

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

— Wynton Marsalis