Jazz Quotes - Page 10

If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out.

The rhythm of life is a jazz rhythm

I do not claim any of the creation of the blues, although I have written many of them even before Mr. Handy had any blues published. I heard them when I was knee-high to a duck.

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.

It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.

For me writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz.

If you don't know what it is, don't mess with it.

I've been YouTube surfing a lot lately so I'll Shazam a song that I find or some s - - and type that in on YouTube and just go through all the relateds for it. So it's been a lot of random jazz s - - lately. Like I found Lonnie Liston Smith, and Ahmad Jamal, s - - like that. So that's been very tight.

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do.

Somebody asked me once, 'Do you think that swing will ever come back?' And I said, 'Do you think the 1938 Ford will ever come back?'

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

I don't know where jazz is going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Up to the age of 14 I had not heard a note of anything before 1750, never heard a note of Bach, never heard anything after Wagner, and never heard any real jazz.

All the jazz guys had interracial relationships, and even the ladies did. Over the years, interracial relationships have been a hip, almost defiant thing, a way of saying "Nobody can put a boundary around me."

He didn't say nothing. He would just do things. He never said nothing or explained nothing. He just would do it and that was it. You were on your own. You had to be very independent being around John [Coltrane].

Keith Moon is not interested in Jazz and won't ever be a Jazz drummer because he's more interested in looking good and being screamed at.

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

Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was.

Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!

I still got my Ferrari.

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

Don't be a perfectionist... leave that to the classical musicians.