Bills Quote by Lenny Breau

My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing…

— Rakim

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a…

— Van Morrison

I love, you know, a lot of jazz, John Coltrane.

— Rakim

My little brother is just an amazing Jazz pianist and sax player.

— Josh Freese

I met the pianist Barry Harris when I was about fifteen. He would show me changes, which I had no idea existed. I knew…

— Charles McPherson

I skipped school one day to see Dizzy Gillespie, and that's where I met Coltrane. Coltrane and Jimmy Heath just joined the band, and…

— Donald Byrd

As far as other instrumentalists, I used to love mellow sax players like Paul Desmond. I love piano.

— Boz Scaggs

Grover Washington was my main influence, and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins,…

— Kenny G

I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.

— Steve Lacy

Karl Johnson, my first piano player at Milt Trenier's, he just swung really hard and gave me a sense of really belonging to the…

— Kurt Elling

As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe.

— Jim Coleman

Clifford Brown was in the jazz circles considered to be probably the greatest trumpet player who ever lived.

— Herb Alpert