Jazz Quotes
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Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life.
Lester Bowie
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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.
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
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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.
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
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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.
Idina Menzel
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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.'
Wayne Shorter
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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.
Madeleine Peyroux
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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.
Eddie Marsan
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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
Scott Joplin
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I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through.
Max Roach
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The reason New Orleans is still around is because of the celebrations it has inspired since its inception as a city. I'm always excited about the possibility of what might happen. That's what drives us, and I think that's the spirit of New Orleans and the spirit of jazz.
Irvin Mayfield
