Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I hope to use dialogue and culture as a means of bringing people of various cultures together, and using that as a way to resolve conflict.
What little family I got is in Mississippi. A whole lot of them died before I left, and my sister died a long time ago, before my mama did.
If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.
I never thought I was playing black music. I was just playing music, the stuff I liked. I sang blues at parties and things when I was a kid.
To my wife, I'm not Herbie Hancock the musician. I'm her husband. When I'm talking to a neighbor, I'm a neighbor. When I vote, I'm a citizen.
I got into hip-hop, but I still had appreciation for all types of music, so I was trained to have an open mind and to always go with the flow.
When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record.
If I told you all the people that have secretly told me I've influenced them, you'd never believe it, and you'll never see it in print, either.
It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.
Montreal was a very active jazz center until club owners started putting in strippers instead of music. Before long, there was nothing to hear.
Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they're trying to say with jazz. You don't need any prologues, you just play.
I love it. When they stop imitating me then I'll start wondering where I'm going wrong. Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.
One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don't want to be a master. When I'm learning something, I'm in my element.
When I hear the piano played in a compositional way, like in a songwriter's way in a compositional way, there's a certain arc to that that I love.
So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination, and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.
I have looked to the Steinway piano since I was three, not only as my ideal choice of an instrument. But, as a responsive and ever reliable friend.
When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.
Basically my influences have been American influences. It's been blues, gospel, swing era music, bebop music, Broadway show music, classical music.
When a man's faith is never tried, I don't think he'll ever learn anything. You have to have trial and tribulation, or what are you going to learn?
The idea was I'd never amount to anything in music, The theme there was that I was talented, but I wouldn't work hard enough to do anything with it.
When my friends were listening to hip-hop or R&B, I was in the crib listening to Billy Joel and Michael Bolton, Luther Vandross, and Oscar Peterson.
I don't think you can separate a person's "style" and his persona. If you're writing or improvising honestly, you will inevitably reflect who you are.
I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.
Denzal Sinclaire embodies the tradition of the great singers I love like Nat Cole, yet definitely has his own voice. He is one of my favourite singers.
Before he fought Billy Conn, Joe Louis said, 'He can run, but he can't hide.' That's how I feel about New York: You can run from it, but you can't hide.
It's not easy to play in a framework that requires simplicity and to tastefully find ways to interject the kind of freedom that we have in playing jazz.
When Seymour saw me seated at the piano at that first rehearsal, he shouted: 'What's that kid doing here? Call your piano player and let's get started.'
Probably the most profound thing in the Bible is 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.' This is what, to me, is the essence of Christianity.
The arts have always served relationships between people of different cultures so well. In a way, the arts function as a very serious kind of ambassador.
My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.
Whatever we can do to just give people a sense of hope in the face of what seems like hopelessness. That's a small thing that an artist can do sometimes.
People say that slaves were taken from Africa. This is not true: People were taken from Africa, among them healers and priests, and were made into slaves.
Someone once asked me if I was gay. I said, 'Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity?' I avoid the trap of easy definition.
I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.
You don't have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.
I get ideas from everything. A big color, the sound of water and wind, or a flash of something cool. Playing is like life. Either you feel it or you don't.
I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.
I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me.
I used to take my mother to Yosemite. When I turned 14, I got my driver's license, and that's where she'd want to go, so I'd go take her there for two weeks.
I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.
In the year of 1902, when I was about seventeen years old, I happened to invade one of the sections [in New Orleans] where the birth of Jazz originated from.
It's very rare that you get very old jazz lovers and super-young hip-hop lovers at the same exact show, when you think about it. Not many artists can do that.
It's a constant challenge to get your arrangement and musical expression across to a new audience, especially when you're playing live every night like we are.
My hope is that the music will serve as a metaphor for the actions taken by the inhabitants of this wonderful planet as a call for world harmony on all levels.
My mother Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck was a pianist who studied with Dame Myra Hess and Tobias Matthey. As a child in California I used to listen to her play Chopin.
I think that I was being much more uptight about those things before. I feel like I really don't have to prove anything at this point other than what I'm doing.
It's awful to have to, but I've started thinking about that, you know. 86. I'm thinking, well, maybe I might make it to 90. At least I'd like to have my brains.
I was always willing to say, "Let's see what happens," when something came up that looked like it might help me get a little closer to where I wanted to be . . .
Most of the international acceptance of jazz education can be traced to the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, and the wonderful program they inaugurated.