Jazz Quotes - Page 32

• I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

  Amy Tan

  Life Lesson, Writing, Fiction

  "Author of The Joy Luck Club". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

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• I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.

  Billie Holiday

  Home, Blue, Years

  Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.70, Broadway Books

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• Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe. . . Thats what I would like to do. I think thats one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musicians is through his music.

  John Coltrane

  Thinking, Giving, Trying

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• Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.

  John Coltrane

  Fall, Dark, Monk

  "Coltrane on Coltrane". Downbeat, September 29, 1960.

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• Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way--through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all.

  John Coltrane

  Order, Play, Piano

  "Coltrane on Coltrane" in Downbeat, September 29, 1960.

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• My contributions were many: First clown director, with witty sayings and flashily dressed, now called master of ceremonies.

  Jelly Roll Morton

  Witty, Directors, Firsts

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• I've been working on something, just some jazz, relaxed stuff. It will be standard, just piano and voice. It started out as a fun project for me though, I'm still not sure about releasing it.

  Justin Guarini

  Fun, Voice, Piano

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• I have been robbed of three million dollars all told. Everyone today is playing my stuff and I don't even get credit. Kansas City style, Chicago style, New Orleans style hell, they're all Jelly Roll style.

  Jelly Roll Morton

  New Orleans, Cities, Kansas City

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• I haven't got a great jazz band and I don't want one. Some of the critics, Down Beat's among them, point their fingers at us and charge us with forsaking real jazz . . . It's all in what you define as 'real jazz.' It happens that to our ears harmony comes first. A dozen colored bands have a better beat than mine. Our band stresses harmony.

  Glenn Miller

  Real, Stress, Band

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• A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.

  Glenn Miller

  Music, Personality, Sound

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• The jazz band's chief stimulus, of course, was the rise of the negro 'blues' and their exploitation by the negro song-writer, W. C. Handy.

  Bix Beiderbecke

  Song, Band, Chiefs

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• Jazz is musical humor. The noun jazz describes a modern American technique for the playing of any music, accompanied by noise called harmony, and interpolated instrumental effects. It also describes music exhibiting influence of that technique which has as its traditional object to secure the effects of surprise, or in the broadest sense, humor.

  Bix Beiderbecke

  Musical, Technique, Nouns

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• My D'Angelico is a jazz archtop guitar. That guitar was made for Glenn Miller's guitar player in 1939. It's a '39 D'Angelico New Yorker.

  Brian Setzer

  Player, Guitar, Made

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• The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.

  Brian Setzer

  Country, Song, Unique

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• I feel myself trying to be charming, and then I realize I’m obviously trying to be charming, and then I try to be even more charming to make up for the fake charm, and then I’ve basically turned into Liza Minnelli: I’m dancing in tights and sequins, begging you to love me. There’s a bowler and jazz hands and lots of teeth.

  Gillian Flynn

  Begging You, Hands, Dancing

  Gillian Flynn (2012). “Gone Girl: A Novel”, p.11, Crown

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• Basketball, unlike football with its prescribed routes, is an improvisational game, similar to jazz. If someone drops a note, someone else must step into the vacuum and drive the beat that sustains the team.

  Phil Jackson

  Basketball, Football, Team

  Phil Jackson (2005). “The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul”, Penguin Group USA

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• As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music.

  Edgar Winter

  Great American, Blues Music, Contribution

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• Jazz is like a big secret club. The mainstream media doesn't pay any attention to it, it's like 1 percent of the music market - no one cares. Why? Because the majority of jazz is old.

  Robert Glasper

  Media, Secret, Majority

  "Glasper revels in success of hybrid jazz album". Interview with Nekesa Mumbi Moody, www.sandiegouniontribune.com. July 06, 2012.

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• I love music, I love all kinds of music, particularly jazz. Jazz is an extension of America. There's no other country in the world that could have produced jazz.

  Jon Huntsman, Jr.

  Country, America, World

  "Which Republican Candidate Would Make the Best Arts Nominee? The ARTINFO Endorsement" by Benjamin Genocchio, Andrew M. Goldstein and Chloe Wyma, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 3, 2012.

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• I love most melodic music - classical, reggae, big band, jazz, blues, country, pop, swing, folk.

  John Lescroart

  Country, Swings, Band

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• New York is the dream world, the center of jazz and rock

  Gyorgy Ligeti

  Dream, New York, Rocks

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• I'm a musician and, just as the critics are hard on me, I'm hard on the critics.

  Oscar Peterson

  Musician, Critics, Hard

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• It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.

  Oscar Peterson

  Music, Important, Sound

  FaceBook post by Oscar Peterson from Oct 15, 2013

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• I don't do something because I think it will sell 30 million albums. I couldn't care less. If it sells one, it sells one.

  Oscar Peterson

  Thinking, Albums, Care

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• Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor

  Coleman Hawkins

  Thinking, People, Way

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