Jazz music Quotes · Page 7

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

— Sonny Rollins

My mom would have liked it that I patterned myself more after Jimmy Reed.

— Anonymous

If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterward.

— Joe Pass

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

— Carmen McRae

Trane was the father. Pharoah was the son. I was the holy ghost.

— Albert Ayler

“Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras: bold, brassy, and everywhere.”

— Max Lucado

[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

— Miles Davis

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not…

— Nina Simone

I can see forms and shapes in my mind when I solo, just as a painter can see forms and shapes when…

— Elvin Jones

Europe was a very contentious subject in literature and yet jazz musicians still depended on Europe. Now it's not such a big…

— Darryl Pinckney

I like to hear melodies that go from one extreme to the next- saxophone to a bell to a whistle, for instance.

— Roscoe Mitchell

I don't dig that two-beat jive the New Orleans cats play. My boys and I have to have four heavy beats to…

— Count Basie

Louis Armstrong was the primary contributor to jazz music in the 20th century. His improvisational skills served as the principal model for…

— Ellis Marsalis, Jr

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 don't like heroin, unless you're a jazz musician and then you have to be on it because jazz is the sound…

— John Waters

Some people think I'm a rock 'n' roll musician and some think I'm a jazz musician but, for me, there is no…

— Georgie Fame

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the…

— Harry Connick, Jr

I find Indian music very funky. I mean it's very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it's the only other…

— John McLaughlin

The people in Japan love jazz music, man, and also in Europe, far more than they ever did here. And that always…

— Milt Jackson

“There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution,…

— Gerald Early

I was in New York, miserable because I was working supper clubs but I wasn't expressing myself. I was really unhappy with…

— Abbey Lincoln

I think there are only three things that America will be known for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization:…

— Gerald Early

I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn…

— Donald Fagen

I have always loved jazz music and as a teen growing up in New York City and then later on as an…

— Tony Bennett

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

— Ornette Coleman

I don't have a definition of Jazz. You're just supposed to know it when you hear it.

— Thelonious Monk

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

— Lee Konitz

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

— Paul Desmond

When I'm working behind a camera, I feel like I'm trying to achieve something like a jazz musician does.

— Jack Welpott

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

— Mahalia Jackson

I'm all in favor of getting grants for musicians. Or any other good brand of Scotch.

— Pepper Adams

I guess certain kinds of jazz music could be Crunk. But the average jazz song, no, it's not Crunk.

— Lil Jon

As Eric Dolphy said 'Once you play the music, it's in the air. It's gone'. And that's true. But when you record…

— John Abercrombie

Growing up in Iceland, it was very beautiful, very safe, but quite isolated. There was something about jazz music that had a…

— Laufey

Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.

— Miles Davis

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you…

— Charlie Trotter

If income was directly proportional to technical proficiency and education, classical and jazz musicians would be some of the most affluent people…

— Robert Emerson Coleman

We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on…

— Chad Smith

Now as jazz musicians we're saying for this society, you can free up your imagination. You can proceed in an area without…

— Paul Bley

Flexibility is an essential part of Jazz. It's what gives Jazz music the ability to combine with all other types of music…

— Wynton Marsalis