Jazz Quotes · Page 10

Jazz is one of the least learnable art forms.

— Keith Jarrett

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

— Francoise Sagan

I think I represent a more left-wing view of what jazz is

— Pat Metheny

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.

— Herbie Hancock

Jazz is a state of mind. There's no boundaries.

— Robert Glasper

You never get it figured out. You just keep playing.

— David Sanborn

Yeah, I grew up playing lots of jazz music in school.

— Danny Carey

What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?

— Duke Ellington

Anyone who's just driven 90 yards against huge men trying to kill them has earned the right to do Jazz hands.

— Craig Ferguson

I looked back on the roaring Twenties, with its jazz, 'Great Gatsby' and the pre-Code films as a party I had somehow…

— Hugh Hefner

I didn't like progressive jazz or anything. Rock was something I like to listen to.

— Floor Jansen

I listen to jazz, Western classical, contemporary, Bollywood and heavy metal.

— Zeenat Aman

Jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

— Cab Calloway

Pain can be washed out with a song. / Pain can become jazz digested and transformed.

— Alexis De Veaux

I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era.

— Bob Iger

[On bebop years] All I did was sing 'How High the Moon.' It seemed like the only song I ever sang.

— Ella Fitzgerald

Ballet Hispanico is a mixture of ethnic, ballet, social, jazz - you name it, it's doing it. The company has been going…

— Robert Gottlieb

I was into jazz even when I was a kid. My parents would play Ella Fitzgerald, George Shearing, and Dixieland music. I…

— Page Hamilton

I thought I was actually doing quite well - I was on Jazz FM six days a week. I fancied going to…

— Tony Blackburn

I'd listened to [Ornette Coleman] all kinds of ways. I listened to him high and I listened to him cold sober. I…

— Roy Eldridge

When I was young and very green, I worte that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it…

— Louis Armstrong

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had…

— Branford Marsalis

'Star Trek' scared me a lot more than 'White Jazz.' It terrified me, really. Because of the scale, the responsibility, the fact…

— Chris Pine

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big…

— Al Jarreau

The extent of his influence across jazz, across American music, and around the world has such continuing stature that he is one…

— Stanley Crouch

Barry Harris had a club called Jazz Cultural Theater and there were sessions there on a regular basis. I remember being there…

— Jon Gordon

Paul's One Way Out is a fresh, intelligently arranged, and satisfyingly complete telling of the lengthy (and unlikely) history of the group…

— Ashley Kahn

Jazz is so difficult. A lot of people think once they've learned these licks they can get up and play them for…

— Lester Bowie

There's a more experimental album that follows that, which is like Black Magic and While You Were Sleeping. Then there's a return…

— Jose James

It's impossible for me to feel like there's only one way to do a thing. There's nothing wrong with having one way…

— Wes Montgomery

What I can't understand why Blacks can't achieve royal status when it comes to forms that they have largely created? I mean…

— Ishmael Reed

I was a weird kid. I shouldve been gay because I listened to a lot of Broadway musicals. I dont know why…

— Frank Oz

After two takes you're imitating yourself.

— Thelonious Monk

The hippest thing you can do is not play at all. Just listen.

— Lennie Tristano

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

— Duke Ellington

Music is what you notice when it's no longer in your presence...

— Pat Metheny

“Those people obviously don't know who I think I am.”

— Fred Wesley Jr

Unlike anything heard before. This is jazz for the 21st century.

— Scott Yanow

You don't decide you're hip. It just happens that way.

— Cannonball Adderley

I'd rather play jazz, I hate rock and roll.

— Ginger Baker