There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
You can't make a mistake when you improvise.
If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn, and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach.
In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.
Life is a lot like jazz. It's best when you improvise.
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
My whole life has been one big broken promise.
All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.
Improvisation is not the expression of accident but rather of the accumulated yearnings, dreams and wisdom of our very soul.
Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.
Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theatre.
Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.
I find Indian music very funky. I mean it's very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it's the only other school on the planet that develops improvisation to the high degree that you find in jazz music. So we have a lot of common ground.
Improvisation, it is a mystery. You can write a book about it, but by the end no one still knows what it is. When I improvise and I'm in good form, I'm like somebody half sleeping. I even forget there are people in front of me. Great improvisers are like priests; they are thinking only of their god.
Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live.
But no one, when you stop to think, has ever equated abstract expressionism as a movement with jazz music. It's based on improvisation. The rhythms, the personal involvement, all of this is part of the jazz experience.
Composition is selective improvisation.
Composing is improvisation slowed down.
Free improvisation, in addition to being a highly skilled musical craft, is open to use by almost anyone - beginners, children, and non-musicians.
or simply:
