Jazz Quotes · Page 34

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

— Norman Granz

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

— Lenny Breau

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

— Martin Luther King, Jr

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 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

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

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

— Stephen Bruner

Part of what I like to do with Brainfeeder is to get the younger kids hearing jazz, because they don't know where…

— Flying Lotus

The first jazz cruise that I was on was '91. I played with Maria Schneider and John Fedchock's band. Got to meet…

— Jon Gordon

Jazz songs have always been quite literal because many of them are taken from musical theater and you only have a couple…

— Laufey

I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was…

— Mose Allison

I've sung a whole lot of jazz. It's my favorite style of music to sing. People don't realize it, because they're so…

— Brian Stokes Mitchell

I wanted to look at the mentality that can breed that sort of intensity, that kind of cutthroat, pressure-cooker feeling, especially a…

— Damien Chazelle

If I had to look at 'Now He Sings'... from outside myself, I see it as a natural part of the growth…

— Chick Corea

I grew up in Shanghai 'til I was 10 or 11, with one year in Tibet. When I was 5 or 6…

— Peter Max

It's either, like, 'Your album was the first jazz album I listened to,' or, like, 'My friend took me to this show,…

— Kamasi Washington

I did 'I'd Do Anything,' and then a play and then 'A Little Light Music.' I played jazz in a night club…

— Jessie Buckley

You know that this vignette and that vignette belong side by side, you know that a certain turn of phrase you've been…

— Teju Cole

I sometimes tell students the only guarantee you've got is the music and no-one can take that away from you. Only you…

— Mike Stern

New Orleans had a great tradition of celebration. Opera, military marching bands, folk music, the blues, different types of church music, ragtime,…

— Wynton Marsalis

Avant-garde, jazz, pop, classical, country and western, rock, free, straight-ahead, etc. are ultimately meaningless terms in the face of the music being…

— Pat Metheny

You learn from music, from watching great athletes at work - how disciplined they are, how they move. You learn these things…

— Ernest Gaines

“ORIGIN OF JAZZ It was 1906. People were coming and going as usual along Perdido Street in a poor neighborhood of New…

— Eduardo Galeano

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

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

— Tony Bennett

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

— Miles Kington

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

— Lenny Kravitz

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

— Esperanza Spalding

They always say that jazz doesn't sell, but it's a lie, because it does sell, and it sells consistently year in and…

— Lester Bowie

I had my jazz club and I had enough money. So I didn't have to write for my living.

— Haruki Murakami

Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don't care what you play…

— Charles Mingus

I have a sketch of an idea and I never really talk about: perhaps do another jazz record, but with other elements…

— Dianne Reeves

I worked in a band a long time. As we got older, we became more aware of soul and jazz.

— Corinne Bailey Rae

I studied jazz in college. I studied music history, and I have a degree in music engineering.

— Lari White

I started playing trumpet when I was 11 years old. All I wanted to be was a jazz trumpet player when I…

— Flea

Lately, Ive been listening to some jazz albums. I love the new Pat Metheny album. John Coltrane. I still like good metal,…

— Geezer Butler

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

— John Coltrane