Bobby McFerrin Quotes About Jazz

Quotes about: Jazz

• When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us. When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of — or alongside — the words of a song. I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Song, Moving, Talking

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I'm still and quiet inside, I'll begin. It's very personal; it has to be. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Song, Dark, Thinking

• Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Father, Home, African American

• I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Music, Color, Use

• I have a lot of albums yet to do.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Music, Albums, Jazz

• I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Senior, School, Years

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