Quotes of Jazz - somelinesforyou

“ It seems to me monstrous that anyone should believe that the jazz rhythm expresses America. Jazz rhythm expresses the primitive savage. ”

- Isadora Duncan

“ Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning. ”

- B. B. King

“ Ragtime was my lullaby. ”

- Hoagy Carmichael

“ By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with. ”

- Duke Ellington

“ Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance. ”

- Françoise Sagan

“ Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains. ”

- John Philip Sousa

“ There's more bad music in jazz than any other form. Maybe that's because the audience doesn't really know what's happening. ”

- Pat Metheny

“ What kills me is that everybody thinks I like jazz. ”

- Samuel L. Jackson

“ You know, it's funny… when you're making money, people don't think you're playing jazz. Now when you're not making money, people think that you're a good jazz musician. ”

- Pete Fountain

“ Although my parents were playing jazz for me when I was a kid, I didn't pay much attention until I saw someone my age improvising, playing jazz. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ Another thing that I noticed is a lot of people in the hip hop scene have a great respect for jazz and have incorporated by sampling some elements that come from jazz. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ Well, I was becoming more of a jazz snob, in thinking that jazz was a higher kind of music, and that R&B was, yes, for the body and more commercial. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ Some people say there was no jazz tenor before me. All I know is I just had a way of playing and I didn't think in terms of any other instrument but the tenor. ”

- Coleman Hawkins

“ I haven't a great jazz band, and I don't want one. ”

- Glenn Miller

“ If a jazz player is really playing, the classical player will have to respect him. ”

- Wes Montgomery

“ When you try to define a purity as being something that's closed and limited, you're not talking about the music that I play called jazz. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ When I sense a more conservative and limiting attitude coming from musicians, than my impression is that they're really moving away from the true spirit of jazz. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout. ”

- Melvin Maddocks

“ Jazz is a music that translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ I like jazz, but I could never play it. You just sit there with a guitar the size of a Chevy on your chest, wearing a stupid hat, playing the same solo for an hour. ”

- Dave Mustaine

“ There are a lot of records coming out, in every field of music, not just jazz. ”

- Herbie Hancock

“ Jazz is rhythm and meaning. ”

- Henri Matisse

“ I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet. ”

- Count Basie

“ The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas. ”

- Miles Davis

“ Modern jazz: Variations on a non-existent theme. ”

- Maxim Gorky

“ There are wonderful things in real jazz, the talent for improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience. ”

- Henri Matisse

“ Jazz is the music of the body. ”

- Anais Nin

“ Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here I be. Not for long, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own. ”

- Studs Terkel

“ There's a little truth in all jive, and a little jive in all truth. ”

- Leonard Barnes

“ All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws. ”

- John Coltrane
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