Jazz Quotes
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I think jazz is good, but I don't enjoy it. It's not for me.
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It's just music. It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes. The beat in a bop band is with the music, against it, behind it. It pushes it. It helps it. Help is the big thing. It has no continuity of beat, no steady chug-chug. Jazz has, and that's why bop is more flexible.
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I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.
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I mix everything up. A museum curator once said to me that there is a great jazz component to the way I do things because good jazz is improvisation and draws elements from all different cultures. And that's the way I do everything - the way I dress and decorate.
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The jazz always seems to automatically come out, because it was from my jazz days that I learned that spark. And the nice thing with my band and this repertoire, which is a complete joy, is that we go beyond just playing chords and melody. It is music that can stretch out.
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They flat their fifths, we drink ours.
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To hell with the rules. I'm going for the unknown.
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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.
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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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This all came of a conversation I had with [John] Steinbeck once when we were standing in a men's room somewhere. Steinbeck asked me why I didn't play the banjo any more and I told him that went out with the high-button shoes.
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I got my love of jazz from my stepfather, who was a jazz musician.
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The people know more about [Jazz] in other countries than in America. America is the last country to know about anything, because we're too fat, we have too much of everything, you understand? And we do not listen.
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I've been invited to do a trio with a fantastic jazz guitarist and a harmonica player.
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'Swing' is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a 'swing band' in music.
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In the year of 1902, when I was about seventeen years old, I happened to invade one of the sections [in New Orleans] where the birth of Jazz originated from.
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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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The jazz rhythm won't be understood by the bulk of my audience. That's the problem. We can get away with maybe one tune a night. It depends on where we place it. A song like 'Beyond the Sea,' the fans love that. It's fresh.
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Ted Lewis could make the clarinet talk. What it said was put me back in the case!
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Jazz is like a telescope, and a lot of other music is like a microscope.
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I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.
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Jazz, I mean, music will always move, because it can't become stagnant. Because if it becomes stagnant, it's like a river, it'll kill us all. It has to keep moving, music will always flow.
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I began with dance, doing ballet at 3, then tap, jazz, modern. Then I sang in church choirs, learned how to play clarinet and drums, sang with rock bands and only then did I get into musical theatre.
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Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world.
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Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain, so much beauty of raw emotion and passion.
