Elvin Jones Quotes

• It's the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It's only honesty makes it beautiful.

  Elvin Jones

  Music, Beautiful, Honesty

  63 Copy quote

• Music is a way of life, it's everything. I play drums and that's what I believe I was born to do.

  Elvin Jones

  Believe, Play, Way

  43 Copy quote

• The greatest contribution jazz has made in music has been to replace the role of the conductor with a member of the ensemble who, instead of waving his arms to keep time and convey mood, is an active member of the musical statement. That person is the drummer.

  Elvin Jones

  Musical, Ensemble, Arms

  47 Copy quote

• That's what the drummer is supposed to do. Keep the time. If you can do something else besides that, fine. But the time is essential and non-negotiable.

  Elvin Jones

  Essentials, Drummer, Fine

  35 Copy quote

• If there's any such thing as a perfect man, I think John Coltrane was one. And I think that kind of perfection has to come from a greater force than there is here on earth.

  Elvin Jones

  Music, Men, Thinking

  58 Copy quote

• I can see forms and shapes in my mind when I solo, just as a painter can see forms and shapes when he starts painting. And I can see different colors.

  Elvin Jones

  Music, Color, Mind

  20 Copy quote

• You should get the feeling you should move. That's what is meant when people say the music moves me.

  Elvin Jones

  Moving, People, Feelings

  14 Copy quote

• To me John Coltrane was like an angel on earth. He struck me that deeply.

  Elvin Jones

  Angel, Earth, Angels On Earth

  17 Copy quote

• I feel very, very gratified when people are complimentary to what I have done or appreciated it with sincerity... It makes me feel that maybe I did do something that was proper and that was right.

  Elvin Jones

  Music, People, Done

  10 Copy quote

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