When the Negro musician or dancer swings the blues, he is fulfilling the same fundamental existential requirement that determines the mission of the poet, the priest and the medicine man. — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
The United States is not a nation of black and white people. Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
Now, one can often get away with playing music by ear when it is not being recorded, but writing is another matter; its mistakes… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
The juke joint, the honky tonk, and the ballroom also represent one more thing, anthropologically speaking: a ceremonial context for the male-with-female-duet dance flirtation… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
A jazz tune, melody, or composition is usually based on either a traditional twelve-bar, eight-bar, or four-bar blues chorus or on the thirty-two-bar chorus… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
The blues is not the creation of a crushed-spirited people. It is the product of a forward-looking, upward-striving people. — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
When the Negro musician or dancer swings the blues, he is fulfilling the same fundamental existential requirement that determines the mission of the poet,… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
Effective stream-of-consciousness narration is the product of verbal precision, not just of literal documentation. It is decidedly not a matter of unedited free-association. — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
If it is properly done, the 'as told to' autobiography represents how the subject wants his story told. — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
As any competent student of literary composition knows, the more natural and casual a voice sounds in print, the more likely it is to… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
Jazz music, as is also the case with the old down-home spirituals, gospel and jubilee songs, jumps, shouts and moans, is essentially an American… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
The improvisational nature of jazz musicianship is such that a truly competent performer must be prepared to function as an on-the-spot composer who is… — Albert Murray Copy Share Image
