Jazz Quotes · Page 53

I fear that I won't get better and that I won't have time to practice. To be called a "jazz musician" -…

— Esperanza Spalding

Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that…

— Miles Davis

I loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique.

— Tony Bennett

My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.

— Lenny Kravitz

Astronomers, like burglars and jazz musicians, operate best at night.

— Miles Kington

Growing up playing jazz and improvising has had a big impact on me, and it translates into my music.

— Stephen Bruner

Yes, I have been studying piano since I was six. Classical, jazz, compositional, Broadway, everything. I just love it all.

— Janel Parrish

I loved music from the age of eight. Jazz and blues. But also Little Richard and Elvis Presley.

— Bryan Ferry

We've now got a whole generation of jazz musicians who have been brought up with hip-hop. We've grown up alongside rappers and…

— Kamasi Washington

What isn’t on my iPod playlist? I have very eclectic tastes. Jazz. Classic Rock. Hip Hop. Ska. Soul. Electronica.World Music. Funk. Blues.…

— Michele Norris

We played, jazz, blues, dixie, and it all came from the church. When I went to church, I would see the sisters…

— Scatman Crothers

You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought…

— Joseph Jarman

The thing that is making jazz healthy today is that people are coming out of other backgrounds - from rock, folk, from…

— Billy Taylor

What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don't mean…

— Kurt Vonnegut

Man, I just feel so fortunate to be a jazz musician at all. I have a hard time thinking of it any…

— Kurt Elling

I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz…

— Haruki Murakami

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have…

— Amy Ray

I think of myself as a jazz player, and my music as a natural extension of the jazz tradition. What I'm doing…

— Richard Grossman

When people get up on the stage and say, "I've got AIDS," or "I'm in recovery," gosh, it's hard for them. It's…

— Cecil Williams

The average age of the Jazz audience is increasing rapidly. Rapidly enough to suggest that there is no replacement among young people.…

— Terry Teachout

Then it evolved into more of a ballad style singer/songwriter thing. And there was a conflict in trying to merge the two…

— Van Morrison

Jazz stopped being creative in the early '80s. After your acoustic era, where you had the likes of the Miles Davis Quintet,…

— Robert Glasper

I started playing music around 13 or 14, played jazz in high school, and played other stuff in college. After college, I…

— Jesse Andrews

I worry more about the marketing that's taken hold since the 70s. The Jazz era, the Swing era, those were huge. Entire…

— Wynton Marsalis

Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words.

— Charlie Haden

I don't know where jazz is going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

— Thelonious Monk

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

— Norman Granz

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties.

— Martin Luther King, Jr

I started playing jazz by slowing down Tal Farlow records and analyzing his runs

— Lenny Breau

I just can't stand it [jazz/rock]. It just doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't hit me...it doesn't get me...it just doesn't…

— Van Morrison

And that's the soulful thing about playing: you offer something to somebody. You don't know if they'll like it, but you offer…

— Wynton Marsalis

I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about Jazz.

— Pat Metheny

The most common misconception about me is that I'm basically a jazz singer.

— Phoebe Snow

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

— David Amram

Charlie Parker lifted jazz music off the dance floor and into the stratosphere!

— Joe Lovano

Personally, I can't see how anyone can produce any beautiful music out of being angry.

— Chico Hamilton

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society and express yourself freely and creatively.

— Mulgrew Miller

I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.

— Lester Bangs

It is Jazz's very nature to change, to develop & adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

— Pat Metheny

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

— Tony Wilson