Jazz Musician Quotes - Page 2

• If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

  Count Basie

  Music, Night, Play

  33 Copy quote

• This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that 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, Jazz, States

  "What to Listen For in Music".

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• Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

  Herbie Hancock

  Music, Jazz, Genre

  72 Copy quote
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  Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.

  Louis Armstrong

  Inspiring, Music, Retirement

  1968 Quoted in the Observer, 21 Apr.

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• If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.

  Louis Armstrong

  Life, Music, Practice

  119 Copy quote

• Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Play, Bullshit

  81 Copy quote

• It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

  Harry Connick, Jr.

  Song, Musician, Jazz

  12 Copy quote

• Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

  Charles Mingus

  Creativity, Simple, Plain Language

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

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• If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterward.

  Joe Pass

  Inspirational, Music, Guitar

  68 Copy quote

• Well, I'm too old to pimp, and too young to die, so I'm just gonna keep playin'

  Clark Terry

  Pimp, Jazz, Young

  110 Copy quote

• In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That's a little bit too much.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Mistake, Europe

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• A problem is a chance for you to do your best.

  Duke Ellington

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  146 Copy quote

• It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

  George Santayana

  Football, Art, Kindness

  George Santayana (1968). “Santayana on America: Essays, Notes, and Letters on American Life, Literature, and Philosophy”

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• If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Reality

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

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• I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat.

  Wes Montgomery

  Funny, Music, Guitar

  107 Copy quote
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  Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. 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)

  76 Copy quote

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• "If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying."

  Coleman Hawkins

  Success, Music, Fitness

  34 Copy quote

• It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

  Johann Sebastian Bach

  Music, Keys, Play

  191 Copy quote

• Never play anything the same way twice.

  Louis Armstrong

  Music, Play, Way

  19 Copy quote

• As any jazz musician knows, it takes flexibility and adaptability for improvisation to create beauty.

  Doc Childre

  Beauty, Musician, Jazz

  Doc Lew Childre, Bruce Cryer (2000). “From Chaos to Coherence: The Power to Change Performance”, p.192, HeartMath

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• Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Jazz And Life, Boundaries

  "Bird: the legend of Charlie Parker". Book by Robert George Reisner, p. 27, 1977.

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  There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Two, Jazz

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.326, Oxford Paperbacks

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• By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Daughter, Mother

  "At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene". Book by Nat Hentoff, 2010.

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• 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)

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  Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

  Steve Martin

  Funny, Music, Dance

  66 Copy quote