What I wanted to do was music, until I was about 16. But it was jazz and rock, never classical music.

I must say, I don't think there's any more challenging music out there in jazz than what we're doing.

Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules too complex, there's some sort of musical explosion.

I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a Jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

All the music you've ever heard in your life is somewhere in your head. I don't reject that, I use it.

I'm not really married to the craft of jazz - I'm married to me, and my style, and whatever I produce.

Life on the road is murder. It's as though life begins and ends when you have your horn in your mouth.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.

Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout.

I like the music. I love it & live it in fact. But for me the business part of music just plain stinks.

The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.

I'm just trying to avoid any sort of generic kind of music - I don't want to do generic jazz or fusion.

I like the idea of an eclectic approach, incorporating jazz with other forms and other genres of music.

All them weird chords which don't mean a thing...you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to

I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.

My father was a huge jazz fan, so I remember him playing Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughn, and Count Basie.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about Jazz.

Jazz translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners.

You need better technique than I have to play jazz, but what you have to do is the same thing, isn't it?

In the sense that I also try to reflect the fullness of the black experience, I’m very much a jazz poet.

I don't know any jazz stuff. I don't know how to jam in that way. So jamming, for me, is writing a tune.

Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.

Salsa, classic rock, soul music, jazz... all of that was a part of my education in making hip-hop music.

A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life.

I do ballet and pointe work. I also do tap, commercial jazz and technical jazz, freestyle street dancing.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

I gravitate to rhythmic music, so I listen to jazz, world music, Indian music, Hawaiian music, all kinds.

Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't.

Music is my religion. Music is the only thing that has never failed me. People let you down, music won't.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

You do [jazz] because you love it and hope many some others may as well. You do this because you need it.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

I can't imagine my life without the extraordinary bebop jazz revolution in New York in late '40s and '50s.

I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.

So the whole basis for jazz music is based on the fact that the bass player could not play his instrument.

Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.

Certain jazz musicians just copy what was done 100 years ago. The music won't grow if nobody takes a risk.

Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it.

There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.

I missed jazz, kind of. And by the time I came to it in life, it was too intimidating to enjoy thoroughly.

I could do without 'cool' publications calling me 'mom jazz.' But I laughed all the way to the bank, baby.

Jazz is not background music. You must concentrate in order to get the most out of it. You must absorb it.

Improvising musicians are musical travelers, voyagers. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.

I never liked jazz or anything else. Early rock n' roll - that was music to me. Everything else was boring.

Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music man. It's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.

Share This Page