Jazz Quotes - Page 26

I play in a jazz sextet. So I don't have time to do a lot of conventions. The good thing is, when I do them, it does puts me back in touch with the people who go to movies. I do these shows just to stay in touch with them.

I went to North Texas State, one of the great jazz schools. When I realized I wasn't going to be Miles Davis, I switched my major to English and theater.

Are you kidding? That's the music of the spheres, commissar. It's beautiful. Like old jazz.

I know jazz is completely un-American. But the reason why America doesn't like it is because it's not funny. We [americans] have made jazz funny.

I must say, I don't think there's any more challenging music out there in jazz than what we're doing.

I'm interested in music, not in my image. If someone plays something fantastic, that I could never have thought of, it makes me happy to know it exists.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

I would love to make a real jazz album someday because I never have. But that's something I'm not in a rush to do.

I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.

I do modern jazz and contemporary combined. I like to feel strong, flexible, and so there is stretching involved.

[My wife Margot] was the - I guess, the coordinator or the production manager [of The Jazz Review], and we got to know each other and we married.

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

Jazz is my comfort music, like comfort food.

[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.

Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.

I was sometimes doing DJ stuff and working in a record shop in Tokyo. That place was a very unique shop. It was the place lots of DJs came to get used and rare records. It had a lot of jazz, funk, Latin and seventies rock.

I just don't know anything about jazz, really. I've never really listened to it, but I'd definitely like to discover more about it.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician

People always ask, "Why jazz?" and I'm like "Why not?" It's kind of like asking Seurat, "Why so many dots?" I imagine if you asked Bjork, "Why the Tibetan bells?" She'd probably be like "That's just what I heard." It's the same thing. This is just the way I see music.

You know, somebody mentioned that I was sort of a jazz-pop singer. And I'm thrilled that somebody would find that, at last, in my presentation, because it's such a part of where I live.

[On Lisa Kudrow:] She's like the best kind of jazz there is. You don't know what note she's going to hit and it's always a surprise.

The day of the great Jazz improviser who doesn't know how to read music is over.

My other friends are in music relaxation class, which I do not attend, because smooth jazz makes me angry sometimes.