A Quote by Kurt Elling

We all know that jazz demands a cultivation of the mind. — © Kurt Elling
We all know that jazz demands a cultivation of the mind.
Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon.
I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.
Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?
We teach that a person must practice only one cultivation way. No matter how you practice cultivation, you should not mess up your cultivation by adding other things.
I love jazz. So to me, there are two main types of jazz. There's dancing jazz, and then there's listening jazz. Listening jazz is like Thelonius Monk or John Coltrane, where it's a listening experience. So that's what I like; I like to make stuff that you listen to. It's not really meant to get you up; it's meant to get your mind focused. That's why you sit and listen to jazz. You dance to big band or whatever, but for the most part, you sit and listen to jazz. I think it comes from that aesthetic, trying to take that jazz listening experience and put it on hip-hop.
That.s what Jazz music is all about.We started the Messengers because somebody had to mind the store for jazz.No America--no Jazz. It is the only culture that America has brought forth.
Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.
If I have to be considered any type of jazz artist, it would be New Orleans jazz because New Orleans jazz never forgot that jazz is dance music and jazz is fun. I'm more influenced by that style of jazz than anything else.
The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful, and the ennobling in man, and for one, I wish to see it become universal.
The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful and the ennobling in man.
The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity ... the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation.
High SQ demands the most intense personal integrity. It demands that we stand open to experience, that we recapture our ability to see life and others afresh, as though through the eyes of a child, to learn how to tap into our intuition and visualization, as a powerful means of using our inner knowing to “make a difference.” It demands that we cease to seek refuge in what we know and constantly explore and learn from what we do not know. It demands that we live the questions rather than the answers.
I have to admit that more and more lately, the whole idea of jazz as an idiom is one that I've completely rejected. I just don't see it as an idiomatic thing any more...To me, if jazz is anything, it's a process, and maybe a verb, but it's not a thing. It's a form that demands that you bring to it things athat are valuable to you, that are personal to you. That, for me, is a pretty serious distinction that doesn't have anything to do with blues, or swing, or any of these other things that tend to be listed as essentials in order for music to be jazz with a capital J.
Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.
I once tried to sing jazz for real. But jazz didn't do it for me. You can't have jazz without a jazz world, which doesn't exist anymore.
Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.'
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