Jazz Quotes · Page 36

We play rock & roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz.

— Walter Becker

You know what I'd really like to do? I'd like to record some white Chicago jazz.

— Ahmet Ertegun

“A psychic friend could come in very handy." I reshuffled my cards. "I predict I will," she said.”

— Cath Crowley

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy... all the things that humans have.

— Bob Brookmeyer

I do love singing. I wouldn't say I'm any good, but I definitely love it - especially jazz singing.

— Emilia Clarke

Well, I was in a band. I was the singer with a band called the Soul Satisfiers. I sang then quite a…

— Gloria Gaynor

Steve Marcus was one of the greatest saxophonists in all of music. He truly was able to unite jazz with the popular…

— Larry Coryell

Miles got a mystique about him-plus he's at the top of his profession. And he's got way, way, way more money.

— Dizzy Gillespie

I've learnt new scales through playing different types of music, like Indian raga scales, gipsy scales and harmonically-based jazz scales.

— Nigel Kennedy

I'm a big fan of gospel music, and you cannot be a fan of rock and roll, you cannot be a fan…

— Penn Jillette

That.s what Jazz music is all about.We started the Messengers because somebody had to mind the store for jazz.No America--no Jazz. It…

— Art Blakey

I think jazz is a bit gatekept. Personally, I think that everyone has space in them to enjoy jazz and jazz-adjacent music.…

— Laufey

The greatest contribution jazz has made in music has been to replace the role of the conductor with a member of the…

— Elvin Jones

“All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly…

— Nathan Reese Maher

You're just sort of searching for this 'thing' and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. All music is imperfect, but…

— John Abercrombie

When I play live in restaurants and cafes, I don't play my own stuff. I play jazz and 'American Songbook' standards, and…

— Darren Criss

It's perhaps easier to say what prog rock isn't than what it is: it's not three-minute pop songs, it's not straightforward rock,…

— Gavin Esler

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and…

— Harry J. Anslinger

She [Joni Mitchell] wanted to have that (jazz) element in her music. Of course, when she heard Jaco's [Jaco Pastorius'] music and…

— Don Alias

It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you…

— Stan Getz

Today I believe that man cannot escape his destiny to create whatever it is we make - jazz, a wooden spoon, or…

— Orson Welles

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from…

— Ernest Gaines

My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music…

— Rokia Traore

That's what it is-it's jazz. It's just jazz. That's what the whole thing is about to me. It's about what's happening right…

— Van Morrison

North Texas is by far the most serious minded jazz program I have encountered.

— Dave Liebman

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the…

— Roberta Flack

New York seems conducted by jazz, animated by it. It is essentially a city of rhythm.

— Anais Nin

I was really falling in love with jazz and dedicating myself in that direction.

— Jon Gordon

If you mess around with jazz, you better have a good drummer and a good bass player.

— Gunther Schuller

I do modern jazz and contemporary combined. I like to feel strong, flexible, and so there is stretching involved.

— Natalia Vodianova

I'm thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.

— Kurt Elling

The world thinks that music is a commercial commodity. I'm glad that is not my code.

— Sun Ra

I'm the first one out on the dance floor. In college I had to take jazz, ballet and tap dancing, but, before…

— Miles Teller

I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.

— Nina Simone

I can dance. I like hip hop and stuff and jazz movements, but I'm horrible in ballet. I tried.

— Keke Palmer

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It's not an occupation or profession,…

— Duke Ellington

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more…

— Wynton Marsalis

the French write plays and paint as naturally as we play jazz - it's just a national gift.

— Alice B. Toklas

I used to sing in jazz clubs with a friend until she went another way.

— Ophelia Lovibond

My vocal influences are a lot of jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Julie London, they had this tenderness to their voice.

— Borns