Jazz  Quotes

• Nat Adderley - "I never heard of a Jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do... play for the walls?"
• African proverb - "When the music changes, so does the dance."
• Herb Alpert - "Instrumental music can spread the international language."
• Mose Allison - "The essentials of Jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing & instrumental personality."
• Karrin Allyson - "Keeping your artistic self as creative as possible is a balancing act."
• Jon Anderson - "One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport."
• Anonymous - "Jazz players do it standing up."
• Anonymous - "Music is what feelings sound like."
• Anonymous - "Jazz is an open ended music designed for open minds."
• Harold Arlen - "Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky, Stormy weather, since my man & I ain't together, Keeps raining all the time."
• Louis Armstrong - "What we play is life."
• Louis Armstrong - "You blows who you is."
• Louis Armstrong - "I don't need words. It's all in the phrasing."
• Louis Armstrong - "Never play anything the same way twice."
• Louis Armstrong - "Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them."
• Louis Armstrong - "There is two kinds of music, the good & the bad. I play the good kind."
• Louis Armstrong - "Man, all music is folk music. You ain't never heard no horse sing a song, have you?"
• Louis Armstrong - "Hot can be cool & cool can be hot & each can be both. But hot or cool man, Jazz is Jazz."
• Louis Armstrong - "If I don't practice for a day, I know it... for two days, the critics know it... three days, the public knows it."
• Chet Atkins - "Everything I've ever done was out of fear of being mediocre."
• Chet Atkins - "Once you become predictable, no one's interested anymore."
• Chet Atkins - "Do it again on the next verse & people think you meant it."
• J. S. Bach - "It's easy to play any musical instrument, just touch the right key at the right time & the instrument will play itself."
• Joan Baez - "If you're gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up."
• Anita Baker - "Applause felt like approval & it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily."
• Anita Baker - "You leave home to seek your fortune & when you get it, you go home & share it with your family."
• Chet Baker - "Well if I could play like Wynton, I wouldn't play like Wynton."
• Josephine Baker - "Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky & when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone."
• Patricia Barber - "Music chooses her musicians."
• Charlie Barnet - "I like the girls to match the upholstery of the car."
• Count Basie - "Keep on listening & tapping your feet."
• Count Basie - "The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves."
• Count Basie - "If you play a tune & a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune."
• Count Basie - "If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!"
• Count Basie - "Of course there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues."
• Les Baxter - "Music must be an innovation."
• Jeff Beck - "I don't care about the rules, if I don't break the rules at least 10x every song then I'm not doing my job."
• Jeff Beck - "I play the way I do cause it allows me to come up w/ the sickest sounds possible. That's the point now isn't it?"
• Jeff Beck - "When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent's disapproval."
• Ludwig van Beethoven - "Music is the mediator between the spiritual & the sensual life."
• Bix Beiderbecke - "One of the things I like about Jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?"
• Harry Belafonte - "You can cage the singer but not the song."
• Tony Bennett - "To work is to feel alive."
• Tony Bennett - "I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world."
• Tony Bennett - "Just give a drum roll, announce my name & I come out & sing. I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing."
• George Benson - "I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet."
• George Benson - "I have been doing music all my life so everyday when I get up I expect music will be part of it."
• Irving Berlin - "Talent is only the starting point."
• Irving Berlin - "Life is 10% what you make it & 90% how you take it."
• Irving Berlin - "Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life."
• Leonard Bernstein - "The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial."
• Yogi Berra - "Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it."
• Eubie Blake - "If I'd known I'd live to be a 100 I'd have taken much better care of myself."
• Art Blakey - "We're here to have a ball."
• Art Blakey - "It takes an intelligent ear to listen to Jazz."
• Art Blakey - "Music washes away the dust of every day life."
• Art Blakey - "A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music."