A Quote by Todd Boyd

In classical music, love is based on bitin' -- imitation. It's not based on interpretation. A jazz musician, if he plays someone else's song, has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.
The whole idea of jazz came about was the interpretation of the human dialogue, trading fours. When someone's soloing and someone picks up the solo and plays it back at 'em, it was the imitation of the human dialogue. It was how people spoke, through music.
I think the other thing that's important is getting to a place, which very, very rarely happens with improvising groups, where somebody can decide not to play for a while. You watch any group of musicians improvising together and they nearly all play nearly all the time. In fact I often say that the biggest difference between classical music and everything else is that classical musicians sometimes shut up because they're told to, because the score tells them to. Whereas any music that's sort of based on folk or jazz, everybody plays all the time.
In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form.
The whole music business in the United States is based on numbers, based on unit sales and not on quality. It's not based on beauty, it's based on hype and it's based on cocaine. It's based on giving presents of large packages of dollars to play records on the air.
I'm not a jazz artist. Don't get me wrong now, it's all music to me. I just played music and if it's likeable, someone liked the sound, then fine, but I'm not interested in being a jazz musician. I don't consider myself a jazz musician. I don't have anything to do with that word.
At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.
A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.
I really love jazz, but I will never be a jazz musician as much as I dream. But, I think that the jazz music I love is there in my music.
I wanted to make an album where every song is kind of interacting - where you can't tell what's the string arrangement and what's the song. I guess that came out of going to college, majoring in music, studying classical music, and even as a kid, being really drawn to classical music.
I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas.
Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.
For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.
I love singing jazz. I don't like the idea that classical music should be over here and jazz should be someplace else. It's all wonderful, and we should be open to enjoying it all.
Business today is all about improvisation, which is the essence of jazz. Perhaps in the past we could just follow the operating manual and do what we were told, but today the world is too complex and fast. Today it's all about real-time innovation and creativity. Individuals may get hired based on their resumes, but they'll get promoted and reach their dreams based on their ability to create. In that context, being a jazz musician was the best MBA I could have ever received.
When I started music, I started out in Puerto Rico with classical music. But what really made me want to be a musician was jazz, and because I didn't grow up with jazz, I had to learn it from a very basic level. I had to go into the history and learn everything about the development of the music, all the players and all that stuff.
If I was not a film-maker I'd probably be a musician. I like Kanye West, Jay-Z, R&B, classical, jazz and all kinds of music, but I'd say soulful World Music is my favorite.
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