Saxophone Quotes - Page 3

• My grammar school graduating class in 1941 had a little party for 13 or 14 year-old kids. [Trumpeter] King Kolax's band played for the party and Gene Ammons was playing tenor saxophone with the band. And that's when I said, "That's it!" Just like that, tunnelvision ever since.

  Johnny Griffin

  Kings, Party, Kids

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• Playboys' was an authentic junkie record. Art Pepper was just out of jail, Chet was arrested a week after the session, and piano player Carl Perkins would die two years later. When the record was recorded I was behind bars myself. In 1955 I was caught with narcotics and had to serve almost five years. Luckily, I was allowed to keep my saxophone in the cell, and I composed a lot during the time. They had to come fetch the music for Playboys from jail.

  Jimmy Heath

  Art, Player, Cells

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• Louis Armstrong changed all the brass players around, but after Bird, all of the instruments had to change - drums, piano, bass, trombones, trumpets, saxophones, everything.

  Cootie Williams

  Memorable, Player, Piano

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• Alto (saxophone) is just a very hard instrument; there's so few people that play it really well. I feel it's the best one, too, now. At first I didn't feel that way; I wanted to be a tenor player. It took a long time for me to feel that alto was the most expressive of the saxophones.

  Art Pepper

  Player, Long, People

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• You don't try to duplicate certain things that other cats do, because you could never do it as well as they do. Nobody can get on that tenor saxophone and play like Trane, because he's the only one who can spell out chords and sound good when he does it.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Cat, Play, Trying

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• Tim Price is one of the real ones !
  A good friend and a great player !

  Phil Woods

  Real, Good Friend, Player

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• From the small clubs of the Harlem Renaissance where he began playing saxophone to world tours for the biggest of the big bands, Benny Carter redefined American jazz. From the start, his fellow musicians said the way he played the sax was amazing. They say that about me, too. (Laughter.) But I don't think they mean it in quite the same way.

  William J. Clinton

  Laughter, Mean, Thinking

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• Actually, when I was very young, first starting to play, I think I probably listened more to clarinet players than to saxophones.

  Gerry Mulligan

  Player, Thinking, Firsts

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• I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.

  Lee Konitz

  Double Standard, Instruments, Clarinet

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• I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players. Not to say that it is not important to listen to guitar players, but there's so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

  Bill Frisell

  Player, Guitar, Important

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• I love music. My secret dream has always been to be a jazz musician. I tried the saxophone for a year or two when I was younger, but unfortunately I had to face the fact that I was not really talented !

  Gaspard Ulliel

  Dream, Years, Two

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• After one month with a saxophone shoved in my mouth, my military combatant's enthusiasm disappeared completely. Instead of flying choppers behind enemy lines, I started to fantasise about living in New York, London or Paris.

  Gilad Atzmon

  New York, Military, Creativity

  Gilad Atzmon (2011). “The Wandering Who?: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics”, p.3, John Hunt Publishing

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• I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas.

  Anthony Braxton

  Play, African American, Musician

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• My school music teacher, Al Bennest, introduced me to jazz by playing Louis Armstrong's record of "West End Blues" for me. I found more jazz on the radio, and began looking for records. My paper route money, and later, money I earned working after school in a print shop and a butcher shop went toward buying jazz records. I taught myself the alto saxophone and the drums in order to play in my high school dance band.

  Bill Crow

  Teacher, School, Order

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• I was not a band geek, per say. But me and my two older sisters played instruments, so I would come home and my sister Dana would be playing the clarinet or playing the piano, and I would play the saxophone, my other sister would be singing, my mom would be singing. I was not afraid to be musical. That was not something that I thought was uncool.

  Miles Teller

  Mom, Home, Play

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• I'm very gratified that I had my little 15 minutes,or whatever [at the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition]. It certainly didn't make me rich and famous. But it helped a little bit for a while.

  Jon Gordon

  Competition, Littles, Rich

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• The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music.

  Steve Lacy

  Interesting, Machines, Very Interesting

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• I played in the high school band. I was the one baritone saxophone out of 80 other people. No one could tell whether I was hittin the right notes or the wrong notes.

  Bobby Keys

  School, People, Band

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• ...black music is a group music. That's why I don't like doing a solo saxophone thing: My feeling stems from rhythm, I really have to feel that rhythmic thing happening.

  Jimmy Lyons

  Feelings, Black, Groups

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• I would think, of all the saxophones, the baritone would be the most logical instrument if anybody was adding a voice to the symphony orchestra.

  Gerry Mulligan

  Thinking, Voice, Symphony

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• I was finishing up at High School of Performing Arts and finally, by the end of junior year and start of senior year, made some progress as a 16 year-old classical saxophone player. But not really... not like how the legit cats do. But I love the [Jacques] Ibert, love [Alexander] Glazunov, love the [Paul] Creston.

  Jon Gordon

  Senior, Art, School

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• I throw a Christmas party at my house. It's not really a Christmas party, because I don't want to call it a Christmas party. But let's just say I put a lot I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.

  Clarence Clemons

  Christmas, Party, House

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• After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that's how I ended up just being a saxophone player.

  Ornette Coleman

  Writing, Hard Times, Player

  Interview with Michael Jarrett, www2.york.psu.edu. November 8, 1987.

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• Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first.

  Steve Lacy

  Trying, Firsts, Sopranos

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• It's hard to explain what happens when jazz and punk fuse with a violin twist but it works. Probably because Anson Choi takes off his shirt while he's playing the saxophone. Whoever's not chatting up a Cadet or a girl from Darling House or playing chess with the guys is watching the band. I turn into a groupie.

  Melina Marchetta

  Girl, House, Guy

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