Jazz Quotes - Page 9

I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.

Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft.

What I'm doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word - I love it.

There’s no such thing as a wrong note.

You have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the Blues.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it.

Jazz comes from anywhere the human being has a soul and has a heart.

Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.

I always say it's not my Arkestra, it belongs to some other force which wants certain things, to reach people.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

When you're dead, you're done.

Jazz is restless. It won't stay put & it never will.

I like the idea of an eclectic approach, incorporating jazz with other forms and other genres of music.

I work with many jazz artists as Miles Davis, Laughlin, etc.. One of the things all these artists had in common is that they had no fear.

I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.

As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music.

I used to do a lot of apologizing for what the State Department had done.

Jazz is about freedom within discipline.

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.

Through improvisation, jazz teaches you about yourself. And through swing, it teaches you that other people are individuals too. It teaches you how to coordinate with them.

Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules too complex, there's some sort of musical explosion.

When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

I don't need words. It's all in the phrasing.