Jazz Quotes - Page 35

• Some stances are just conducive to swinging. If I stand up straight for too long it's harder to swing. Plus my feet hurt.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Hurt, Swings, Feet

  Wynton Marsalis, Carl Vigeland (2002). “Jazz In The Bittersweet Blues Of Life”, p.72, Da Capo Press

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• This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Play, Want, Get Up

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• The bandstand is a sacred place.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Sacred, Sacred Places

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• The Duke and Swing represent affirmation in the face of adversity.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Adversity, Swings, Faces

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• Trumpet players are just belligerant, and cocky, and you know, just hard-headed.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Cocky, Player, Trumpets

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• 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

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

  Stan Getz

  Band, Kind, Mickey

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• 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

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

  Stan Getz

  Records, Want, Used

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• Most guys at Berklee are going to wind up truck drivers.

  Pat Metheny

  Wind, Guy, Truck

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• And if I ever DO see [Kenny G] anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind, and maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.

  Pat Metheny

  Guitar, Mind, Pieces

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• Music is what you notice when it's no longer in your presence.

  Pat Metheny

  Music Is, Your Presence

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• If you plan on continuing a tradition, it might be a good idea to find out just what tradition it is that you intend to continue.

  Pat Metheny

  Ideas, Might, Tradition

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• I discovered early in life that if you take gym first period, you can go into the wrestling room and sit in the corner and sleep.

  Paul Desmond

  Sleep, Wrestling, Rooms

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• We're working as if it were going out of style-which of course it is.

  Paul Desmond

  Style, Going Out, Courses

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• How do I know why Miles walks off the stage? Why don't you ask him? And besides, maybe we'd all like to be like Miles, and just haven't got the guts.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Miles, Stage, Walks

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• Sometimes when we're flying or in the hotel, I might run over songs, or in the bathroom.

  Ella Fitzgerald

  Running, Song, Flying

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• [On bebop years] All I did was sing 'How High the Moon.' It seemed like the only song I ever sang.

  Ella Fitzgerald

  Song, Moon, Years

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• Playing octaves was just a coincidence. And it's still such a challenge, like chord versions, block chords like cats play on piano. There are a lot of things that can be done with it, but each is a field of its own. I used to have headaches every time I played octaves, because it was extra strain, but the minute I'd quit I'd be all right. But now I don't have headaches when I play octaves.

  Wes Montgomery

  Block, Cat, Play

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• To me, all guitar players can play, because I know they're getting to where they're at. It's a very hard instrument to accept, because it takes years to start working with it, that's first, and it looks like everybody else is moving on the instrument but you. Then when you find a cat that's really playing, you always find that he's been playing a long time, you can't get around it.

  Wes Montgomery

  Moving, Cat, Player

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• I don't know that many chords. I'd be loaded if I knew that many. But that's not my aim. My aim is to move from one vein to the other without any trouble. The biggest thing to me is keeping a feeling, regardless what you play. So many cats lose their feeling at various times, not through the whole tune, but at various times, and it causes them to have to build up and drop down, and you can feel it.

  Wes Montgomery

  Moving, Cat, Play

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• A lot of places we go, when they see the organ coming in, they're expecting rock and roll, but after they hear us play they like it. To me, guitar cuts through-it carries more than organ. But organ has got more guts.

  Wes Montgomery

  Cutting, Rocks, Guitar

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• Well, I got pretty good and went on the road with a group. We starved. At that time I didn't realize that you'd work one gig in Kansas City, the next in Florida and the next gig will be in Louisville. You know, a thousand miles a night. That was really rough, man.

  Wes Montgomery

  Night, Men, Kansas

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• It's impossible for me to feel like there's only one way to do a thing. There's nothing wrong with having one way of doing it, but I think it's a bad habit. I believe in range. Like, there's a lot of tunes that I play all the time-sometimes I hear 'em in a different register. And if you don't have complete freedom, or you won't let yourself get away from that one straight line, oh, my goodness, that's too horrible to even think about.

  Wes Montgomery

  Believe, Thinking, Play

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• When I first heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise. Something that people could understand, something that was beautiful.

  Charlie Parker

  Beautiful, People, Firsts

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