Jazz Quotes
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I've done all different kinds of genres - doo-wop, pop, funk, gospel, country, jazz, you name it.
Aaron Neville
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I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.
Count Basie
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Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.
J. J. Johnson
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I listen to a mixture of old jazz, contemporary, pop, some world beat stuff and various odds and ends.
Walter Becker
Steely Dan
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My big influences are Joni Mitchell, and a lot of classical and Indian music, as well as Nina Simone and the personal blues and jazz of Billie Holiday. Other influences for me include Bjork, Nick Drake, and Sufjan Stevens.
Yael Naim
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I like jazz, rock n' roll, some hip hop - I can't think of any music I don't like.
B. B. King
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It's a mystery to me why everybody doesn't love jazz. I've never been able to figure that out.
Walter Becker
China Crisis
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It's certainly no coincidence that big bands became the entertainment of the army in WWI and WWII, and that jazz drumming style is very military influenced. The snare drum comes from the military and becomes the core kind of sound of jazz drums.
Damien Chazelle
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If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.
Ice T
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In the '60s, people were still very protective of each field that they belonged to. Avant-garde artists didn't know about rock or pop or jazz. And the jazz people of course didn't want to know about any other music. They were all just kind of protecting their territory.
Yoko Ono
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What about that Dave Brubeck live album, with a version of 'Like Someone in Love' on it, and long sax solos by Paul Desmond? That's what got me hooked on jazz.
Walter Becker
China Crisis
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I wanted to look at the mentality that can breed that sort of intensity, that kind of cutthroat, pressure-cooker feeling, especially a form of music like jazz, that should be - or you'd think should be - all about liberation and improvisation and everything.
Damien Chazelle
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I have been using small teardrop jazz picks since I was, like, 14.
Steve Lukather
Toto
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Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.
Ralph Ellison
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I was the kid at six who was like, 'I want to be in a jazz club.' I was never the pop kid, ever. I mean that's not true, I had a couple years where I wanted to be Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, but aside from that, no.
Rachael MacFarlane
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There are a few things that I will hopefully be credited for as a pioneer. One is my four-mallet playing. Another one is the starting what was first called jazz rock in 1967 when I started my first band, later became jazz fusion by the 1970s.
Gary Burton
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My music is jazz.
Yusef Lateef
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I think all of us begin as writers. I wanted to be a writer from the time I as eight, long before I heard of jazz. The question is, once you have that obsession, what is your subject going to be and you often don't know for some time. It might become fiction, it might be non-fiction, and if it's non-fiction it can go in any number of directions.
Gary Giddins
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I was in this public high school in Princeton, and it had this topnotch jazz program - if you were a musician of any kind of caliber, your holy grail was to be in that orchestra. It was that claim to fame of the school, of the town, other than the university. But it was better than the university band.
Damien Chazelle
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I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.
Jason Mraz
