Jason Moran Quotes
Are we, as humans, gaining any insight on how to talk about ourselves and how something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context. So I want to continue those dialogues. Those are the things I want to foster.
Quotes to Explore
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It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard.
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Music was a way of rebelling against the whole rah-rah high school thing.
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I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.
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How hard it is to make your thoughts look anything but imbecile fools when you paint them with ink on paper.
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I don't know that human beings were meant to mate for life or be monogamous. But, for me, the aspect of marriage that is troubling is that it's a contract that is governed by the state, and I don't want the state to have control over my personal affairs.
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The idea of music is to liberate the listener and lead him to a frame where he feels he is elevated.
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I don't care for the music when they're talking bad about women because I think women are God's greatest gift to the planet - I just like music.
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Music is my way out. I keep things locked up and never say anything. I guess in order to say something to one person, I have to sing it to a couple of thousand. It doesn't make for healthy relationships.
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I actually spend very little time listening to any new music.
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When I grew up, the thing boys would do during the summer is work tobacco because it was a cheap product back then. I didn't want to do that. From an early, early, early age, I was like, 'I like music. This performing thing comes easy.' And perhaps that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing today. Being a musician.
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A good story gives you more of a license to be forward and progressive with the music.
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I like finding that common point between another song and my music. It's like between people; you can be of religion or another, from this country or from another country, but we're all basically the same. It's just the same with songs.
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I like blues but it is music I am too ignorant to understand.
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My favorite book in life is 'A Wrinkle In Time,' which I read before high school. It was my first introduction into the meeting of science and spirit and the universe and big thoughts and all of those interesting New Age-y concepts. It made everything make sense to me and opened up my mind.
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My career? I never think of it as a 'career.' Art and music and all those things that I'm creating are just part of me.
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Music is really something that makes people whole.
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I am about the arrangements and the layers of depth in the music.
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I was pretty gung-ho about music and pursuing that and figuring that whole thing out, so I was wide-eyed and ready to go when I moved to Nashville. I never looked back.
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The irony is that I use computers every day of my life to do music because I edit all of my music in a computer. But when it comes to doing live processing, I prefer, as a performer with an instrument, not just having the computer as the only thing I have. I really prefer and find it much more flexible to have the limitations of pedals.
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Music directly represents the passions of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.
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These Peerless thump their chests in salute to me. The monsters. They go with the wind, chasing power. But they don't realize power doesn't shift. Power is resolute. It is the mountain, not the wind. To shift so easily is to lose trust. And trust is what has kept me alive. Trust in my friends, and their trust in me.
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My mother was very ill when I was 18. She had a brain operation and then a nervous breakdown. It's very strange when you see your parents, who have always been your pillars of strength, suddenly become vulnerable. You don't know whether to be angry that they are not strong or devastated.
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The best way to send information is to wrap it up in a person.
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Are we, as humans, gaining any insight on how to talk about ourselves and how something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context. So I want to continue those dialogues. Those are the things I want to foster.
