Eunice Kathleen Waymon Quotes
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As far as piano players are concerned, Oscar Peterson is my very favorite. I also like McCoy Tyner. I think that the big jazz stars, both now and in the past...how shall I say it? These guys are as great as Bach, Beethoven; all of them. People don't know it yet. If jazz survives and is put on a pedestal as an art form, the same as classical music has been through the years, a hundred years from now the kids will know who they were, with that kind of respect.
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When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.
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Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
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Many times I feel different like a different person.
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We have ordered things so long in a certain way, we are numb. Nobody dares question it. This is what is wrong, symbolically, with America.
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If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.
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I don't like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
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There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
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Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.
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Desegregation is a joke.
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You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
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You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served.
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My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.
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Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing... Oh my God! Ooh... Wow... You can see colors through music. Anything!
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I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
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I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.
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I don't like to go to strange places.
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I do not believe in mixing of the races. You can quote me. I don't believe in it, and I never have. I've never changed. I've never changed my hair. I've never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I've always been. I married a white man one time, but he was a creep.
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My name sounds French but that's just a stage name.
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By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.
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The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.
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I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs... and good ones.
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As I got older though I wanted a life of my own. The classical training was very demanding and thorough. It was a very sheltered existence. Even though I heard blues and gospel on the radio sometimes, it was always back to the piano and study and give recitals.
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Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn't recognize my voice.