Jazz Quotes

Excerpted from Basic Musicianship

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David Ackert - "Musicians are willing to give their entire lives to a moment, melody, lyric or chord that will stir the soul."
David Ackert - "Musicians taste life's nectar in that crystal moment they pour out their creative spirit and touch your heart."
David Ackert - "Musicians are some of the most driven, courageous people on the face of the earth. They deal with more day-to-day rejection in one year than most people do in a lifetime." [P]
Claudia Acuna - "If I can't feel it, I don't want to sing it." [P]
Claudia Acuna - "I don't want to sing anything that doesn't come real." [P]
Pepper Adams - "A lot of critics just hear something different, so they figure it can't be very good." [P]
Cannonball Adderley - "Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life." [P]
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?" [P]
African proverb - "When the music changes, so does the dance."
Cyrille Aimee - "Jazz offers so much freedom in the way the music can be interpreted. It's natural to me. It's where I feel most free." [P]
Ahmad Alaadeen - "Jazz does not belong to one race or culture. It's a gift that America gave the world." [P]
Monty Alexander - "We don't talk music. We just play." [P]
Herb Alpert - "Instrumental music can spread the international language."
Herb Alpert - "I practice every day. I've been doing it since I was eight." [P]
Geri Allen - "Playing with freedom can only come after a certain amount of foundational study." [P]
Mose Allison - "The essentials of Jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing & instrumental personality." [P]
Karrin Allyson - "Keeping your artistic self as creative as possible is a balancing act." [P]
Jon Anderson - "One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport."
Maya Angelou - "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." [P]

Anonymous - "Support local music." [P]
Anonymous - "You are what you listen to."
Anonymous - "Jazz players do it standing up." [P]
Anonymous - "If you stumble, make it part of the dance." [P]
Anonymous - "Good music doesn't have an expiration date." [P]
Anonymous - "Jazz music doesn't have an expiration date." [P]
Anonymous - "A Jazz Musician is a person who has passion." [P]
Anonymous - "Jazz is an open ended music designed for open minds." [P]
Anonymous - "Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time." [P]
Anonymous - "If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time!" [P]
Anonymous - "The size of your audience doesn't matter. Keep up the good work." [P]
Anonymous - "A Jazz musician is someone that puts a $5,000 horn in a $500 car and drives 50 miles for $5 gig." [P]
Anonymous - "Just remember to make the best music you have the ability to make. If you do that, you are a successful musician." [P]
Anonymous - "Jazz musicians were liking things before they were cool since before it was cool to like things before they were cool." [P]
Anonymous - "Jazz is the purest expression of democracy; a music built on individualism and compromise, independence and cooperation." [P]
Anonymous - "A Jazz musician is expressive, intensely feels, fervently articulates & adventurously journeys into the unknown to create their world." [P]
Anonymous - "Voice was the first music instrument & was spontaneous & improvised, hence the first musical sounds were by a Jazz singer." [P]

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." [P]
Louis Armstrong - "What we play is life." [P]

Louis Armstrong - "You blows who you is." [P]
Louis Armstrong - "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know"
Louis Armstrong - "I don't need words. It's all in the phrasing."
Louis Armstrong - "Never play anything the same way twice."
Louis Armstrong - "We all do 'do, re, mi' but you got to find the other notes yourself." [P]
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." [P]
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." [P]
Fred Astaire - "Do it big, do it right and do it with style." [P]
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." [P]
Chet Atkins - "Do it again on the next verse & people think you meant it." [P]
Roy Ayers - "The true beauty of music is that it connects people." [P]
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 a life that backs that up." [P]
Anita Baker - "Applause felt like approval & it became a drug that soothed the pain, but only temporarily." [P]
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." [P]
Chet Baker - "What a fool I am to think my breaking heart could kid the moon." [P]
Josephine Baker - "Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky & when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone." [P]
Patricia Barber - "Music chooses her musicians." [P]
Patricia Barber - "You know at an early age if you have a talent for music." [P]
Danny Barker - "Respect your own creativity and respect the creative space of others." [P]
Charlie Barnet - "I like the girls to match the upholstery of the car."
Kenny Barron - "Jazz music today is from the head and not the heart." [P]
Kenny Barron - "It's not uncomfortable for me to be a sideman, but I feel more comfortable as a bandleader."
Gary Bartz - "Music is the only thing that has never failed me." [P]
Count Basie - "Keep on listening & tapping your feet." [P]
Count Basie - "The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves." [P]
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!" [P]
Count Basie - "Of course there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues."
Shirley Bassey - "I'm a virgin & I brought up all my children to be the same." [P]

Stefano Di Battista - "In live, you can share the moment with the audience." [P]
Les Baxter - "Music must be an innovation." [P]
John Beasley - "I'll just tell the band to learn the tune, then on the gig I'll point to whoever's hot." [P]
Walter Beasley - "People complain about the music industry, but this is a great time to be a musician." [P]
Sidney Bechet - "You gotta mean it and you gotta treat it gentle." [P]
Jeff Beck - "I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever." [P]
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 - "I love it when people hear my music but can't figure out what instrument I'm playing." [P]
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 - "To play without passion is inexcusable." [P]
Ludwig van Beethoven - "Music is the mediator between the spiritual & the sensual life."
Ludwig van Beethoven - "Music should strike fire from the heart of man & bring tears to the eyes of woman."
Bix Beiderbecke - "Jazz has both white and black elements and each in some respects has influenced the other."
Bix Beiderbecke - "One of the things I like about Jazz is I don't know what's going to happen next." [P]
Harry Belafonte - "You can cage the singer but not the song." [P]
Louie Bellson - "It's up to the individual to keep up with the times." [P]
Tony Bennett - "To work is to feel alive." [P]
Tony Bennett - "If you follow your passions, you'll never work a day in your life." [P]
Tony Bennett - "One of the advantages of growing older is you learn what to leave out."
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 - "People love us when we play what we want to play but we're starving." [P]
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."
Bob Berg - "I try to respect my instincts. When my lines call for more notes, I let them go where they are headed." [P]
Shelly Berg - "The one note that will never be forgotten is infinitely more valuable than a stream of virtuosity." [P]

Chuck Berghofer - "The weird thing about bass is the simplest stuff to do is the hardest." [P]
Alan & Marilyn Bergman - "So in a world of snow, of things that come & go, where what you think you know, you can't be certain of, you must believe in spring & love." [P]
Irving Berlin - "Talent is only the starting point." [P]
Irving Berlin - "Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it." [P]
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."
Leonard Bernstein - "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." [P]
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." [P]
Brian Blade - "In order to be honest with myself, I have to reveal more of who I am. This is a part of the improv process." [P]
Eubie Blake - "Listen to the birds and don't hate nobody." [P]
Eubie Blake - "Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind."
Eubie Blake - "If I'd known I'd live to be a 100 I'd have taken much better care of myself."
Eubie Blake - "Never trust anyone who wants what you've got. Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion."
Eubie Blake - "I don't have any bad habbits. They might be bad habits for other people, but they're all right for me."

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." [P]
Art Blakey - "If you feel like tapping your feet... tap your feet." [P]
Art Blakey - "When it comes to music, don't lie to yourself; just tell yourself the truth." [P]
Art Blakey - "People will hire you and then tell you not to do what you were doing when they heard you." [P]
Art Blakey - "A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music."
Terence Blanchard - "Musicians need to continue higher learning try to expand the pallet." [P]
Terence Blanchard - "Forget about upholding the tradition and just play who you really are." [P]

More Jazz quotes & quotations:

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