Jazz Quotes
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I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer...I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues – just a right-out blues – but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music.
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The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.
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I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.
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I was a kid living in New Jersey, who – I'd wanted to make movies since I was a little kid, so that came before music for me. But I started playing drums just as a hobby, and I wasn't even really into jazz that much.
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Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.
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I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.
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Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.'
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I'm not a big jazz fan.
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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.
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I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.
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Marching onward, marching onward Marching to that lovely tune Marching onward, marching onward Happy as a bird in June Sliding onward, sliding onward Listen to that rag Hop and skip now do that slow, oh Do that slow drag Dance slowly, prance slowly Now you hear that pretty rag Dance slowly, prance slowly Now you do the real slow drag Waltz slowly, waltz slowly Listen to the ragtime Hop and skip Now do the slow, oh, do the slow drag
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My music is jazz.
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Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life.
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I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.
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Jazz really does try to include everything. It's always been popular music. But the wonderful thing about jazz is its willingness to take chances.
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I think jazz is good, but I don't enjoy it. It's not for me.
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To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
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I'm a great believer that actors are very similar to session musicians. You wouldn't ask a session musician, 'How do you play jazz,' and then, 'How do you play classical?' They just do it, because if they don't do it, they don't eat.
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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.
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I'm basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good keyboard player.
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I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That's what I apply to everything.
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If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.
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Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.
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I listen to everything from jazz to reggae to heavy metal and I kind of combine everything to make something different
