Jazz Musician Quotes

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  If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

  Louis Armstrong

  Music, Jazz, Asks

  "Jazz Giants of the 20th Century/ Taglines". www.imdb.com. 2007.

  103 Copy quote

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• A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.

  Charlie Trotter

  Food, Together, Musician

  59 Copy quote

• Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

  Ornette Coleman

  Music, Memorable, Night

  48 Copy quote

• When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

  John Coltrane

  Music, People, Desire

  40 Copy quote

• Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Life, Music, Beautiful

  68 Copy quote

• Jazz music is the power of now.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Music, Jazz, Power Of Now

  8 Copy quote

• I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Years, Play

  161 Copy quote

• Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

  Miles Davis

  Brother, Musical, Revolution

  101 Copy quote

• My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls.

  John Coltrane

  Music, Spiritual, Expression

  226 Copy quote

• I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.

  Duke Ellington

  Funny, Music, Girl

  57 Copy quote

• Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

  John Philip Sousa

  Music, Feet, Free Jazz

  John Philip Sousa (2010). “Six marches”, p.52, A-R Editions, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

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• Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.

  Francoise Sagan

  Feelings, Playing Jazz, Nonchalance

  87 Copy quote

• My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

  John Coltrane

  Music, Spiritual, Expression

  160 Copy quote

• They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

  21 Copy quote

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• Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

  Miles Davis

  Life, Music, Beautiful

  179 Copy quote

• Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.

  Frank Zappa

  Music, Smell, Free Jazz

  Song: Be-Bop Tango, 1974

  11 Copy quote

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• The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.

  Louis Armstrong

  Music, Memories, Night

  22 Copy quote

• Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise.

  George Gershwin

  Music, Jazz Hands, Cool Jazz

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  122 Copy quote

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• I don't care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Swings, Purple

  16 Copy quote

• Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

  Tony Wilson

  Listening, Musician, Doe

  40 Copy quote

• If you don't make mistakes you are not really trying.

  Coleman Hawkins

  Fitness, Workout, Mistake

  8 Copy quote

• After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

  Aldous Huxley

  Motivational, Music, Wisdom

  Music at Night (1931) p. 17

  90 Copy quote

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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

  Charles Mingus

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

  57 Copy quote

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• The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."

  Aaron Copland

  Music, Art, Would Be

  What to Listen for in Music (1939) ch. 2

  36 Copy quote

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• If he's a true symphony artist, he knows better than that because he knows that the only truly creative musician is the jazz musician.

  Buddy Rich

  Artist, Symphony, Creative

  15 Copy quote