Stan Getz Quotes About Jazz

Quotes about: Jazz

• You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Play, Textbooks

• A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Ideas, Jazz

• When I got this saxophone, it became a religion. There wasn't TV, there wasn't much money, and there was just a real dedication.... I never thought of it as an art. It was just work that I loved. Not just work, but work that I loved. I loved it so much, I would play it if nobody listened to it. Any jazz musician, if there's nobody around to listen, would play just for the sheer joy of improvising music.

  Stan Getz

  Art, Real, Dedication

• My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often - in fact, mostly - at the expense of everything else in my life.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Spring, Perfection

  Stan Getz (2017). “Stan Getz - Omnibook: For B-flat Instruments”, p.2, Hal Leonard Corporation

• There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. they are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence.

  Stan Getz

  Individuality, Quality, Essentials

• Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Art, Giving

• The value of jazz still has to be clarified. People involve themselves with its superficialities without digging for its soul.

  Stan Getz

  Music, People, Soul

• It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically I love to talk just off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Alphabet, Jazz

• The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.

  Stan Getz

  Challenges, Body, Saxophone

• Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

  Stan Getz

  Records, Want, Jazz

• You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Cameras, Jazz

• I cannot play a lie. I have to believe in what I play or it won't come out.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Lying, Believe

• I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Perfection, Jazz And Life

  Stan Getz (2017). “Stan Getz - Omnibook: For B-flat Instruments”, p.2, Hal Leonard Corporation

• We recorded to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Records, Jazz

• I came from an era when we didn't use electronic instruments. The bass wasn't even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.

  Stan Getz

  Sound, Use, Bass

• I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

  Stan Getz

  Band, Jazz, Kind

• Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn't have a choice.

  Stan Getz

  Kids, Choices, Radio

• I learn something new every day.

  Stan Getz

  Jazz, Something New

• Switch to piano! No. Really, if you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice. Of course, it would be best if you could actually sing with your own voice. The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. Therefore, the challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument or 'voice' that is outside of your body. I love that challenge and have for over forty-five years. As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

  Stan Getz

  Art, Piano, Years

• The saxophone is actually a translation of the human voice, in my conception. All you can do is play melody. No matter how complicated it gets, it's still a melody.

  Stan Getz

  Music, Play, Voice

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