Jazz Quotes · Page 35

A lot of the commercial world wants to bank in on the cachet that jazz brings.

— Kurt Elling

I was blessed to work with The Jazz Messengers when the two piano players were Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea.

— Chuck Mangione

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

The quickest way to become troubled is to be concerned with what people are gonna say about your life and your work.

— Ahmad Jamal

I'm not really married to the craft of jazz - I'm married to me, and my style, and whatever I produce.

— Robert Glasper

Jazz voices that unvanquishable, natural will toward creaativity and self-expression, depite everything, in the here and now.

— Stephanie Mills

I did ballet, jazz, and all that, but I think hip-hop is really where I learned rhythm and groove, which has helped…

— Kelsea Ballerini

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

— Miles Davis

The only reason is that I hadn't seen The Modern Jazz Quartet perform live and a live performance is often where the…

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Ninja has definitely kind of changed its identity since it first started out. Ninja back in the day was always turntables and…

— Bonobo

I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen…

— Philip Pullman

For me jazz is kind of an extension of hip-hop. Kind of the sad thing is that a lot of jazz people…

— Jose James

[Manhattan School Of Music] were kind of just getting the jazz program up and going when I first started there. I was…

— Jon Gordon

I've purposely made my music to be challenging and different. There's some electronics, R&B, blues, Motown, country, jazz and lots of soul.

— Jack Garratt

Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben - an incredible…

— Robert Trujillo

If I was not a film-maker I'd probably be a musician. I like Kanye West, Jay-Z, R&B, classical, jazz and all kinds…

— Kasi Lemmons

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

— Robert Glasper

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

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

By the latter part of high school, by the middle of junior year in high school, Jay Rodriguez played me some Irakere…

— Jon Gordon

Playing octaves was just a coincidence. And it's still such a challenge, like chord versions, block chords like cats play on piano.…

— Wes Montgomery

My dad's also a musician, so jazz was always around the house. When I was 11, I developed an interest in it,…

— Kamasi Washington

Reactionary conservatives are smiling through the racial apocalypse. To them, race baiting is a joke, as 'humorist' Rush Limbaugh will tell you…

— John Ridley

My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy,

— Etta James

A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people.

— Sun Ra

Everything that I'm doing, it's like a future jazz, future trap house movement.

— Masego

To me, nostalgia is nothing more than a mindless plundering of the past for the commonplace.

— Mel Torme

Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.

— Wynton Marsalis

I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things.

— Dianne Reeves

I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That's the point now…

— Jeff Beck

I work very hard at being the best musician I can be because I love it.

— Diana Krall

“Elevators are supposed to smell like urine. That's what make the jazz playing through the overhead speakers sound more authentic.”

— Jarod Kintz

I don't believe that jazz will ever really die. It's a nice way to express yourself.

— Chet Baker

By the time I was in my teens, I was listening to Delta blues and jazz.

— Hozier

The hardest thing for a musician to learn is how to play WITH people. That's what made the Basie rhythm section.

— Jo Jones

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

— Ernest Gaines

I think that drummers have come a long way, but they haven't forgotten players like Gene Krupa, or the other jazz players.

— Bill Ward

I don't know if I have enough guts to do a whole standard jazz record.

— Gary Cherone

One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?

— Bix Beiderbecke