Improvisation Quote by Art Tatum

Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body's breath, and the strings' wails and moans are…

— Anais Nin

And more than anything, I like the improvisation of jazz. That's the same thing with DJ-ing. There's so much improvisation you can do with…

— DJ Jazzy Jeff

You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

— Roscoe Mitchell

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

— John McLaughlin

But no one, when you stop to think, has ever equated abstract expressionism as a movement with jazz music. It's based on improvisation. The…

— Romare Bearden

Composing is improvisation slowed down.

— Wayne Shorter

Business today is all about improvisation, which is the essence of jazz. Perhaps in the past we could just follow the operating manual and…

— Josh Linkner

I may be prejudiced, but I believe that jazz music has the strongest healing potential, and it's not just because I play it and…

— Horace Silver

I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.

— Paul Desmond

I'm a jazz musician by education and vocation, but I don't think jazz should [ dictate] what I want to do.

— Dave Douglas

The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.

— John Lewis

Jazz music just resonates with the frequency of me.

— Esperanza Spalding