Top 1200 Jazz Improvisation Quotes & Sayings - Page 18

Charlie Parker lifted jazz music off the dance floor and into the stratosphere!

The main thing about the word jazz, is that it's very limiting to what people are doing.

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

I am a big music guy. Hip-hop, R&B, old school, jazz.

Jazz musicians have always tended to have cult followings, which is pretty wonderful.

It took me forever, learning improvisation, because I had studied with Lee Strasberg - I dropped out of Chicago and went to his classes in New York for a couple of years, once or twice a week. What I didn't realize was I was learning directing because he wasn't all that good about acting, not for me.

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

New York seems conducted by jazz, animated by it. It is essentially a city of rhythm.

My style is a little quirky. I can't play as fast as most professional jazz players.

I listen to classical music very much. There's a lot of jazz that I don't enjoy listening to.

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.

jazz is the expression of America's romantic self, its sensual potency, its lyrical force.

I'd like to be a jazz singer, but I couldn't possibly do it; nobody would want me, anyway.

The enthusiasm, the adulation for us as jazz artists, in Kiev and Odessa was really heartwarming.

Free form jazz means absolutely nothing to me. Because there are no boundaries.

Until I was in 6th grade, I took ballet, jazz, tap, and hip hop.

My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.

Between Prince and my dad's fusion-jazz records, I didn't have a choice in being funky.

Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

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

I was introduced to jazz, and that's become a basic concern and passion of mine ever since.

I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something tremendously special. But I am a jazz fan.

Jazz vision is a wordless conversation between musical notes and visual expressions.

I am not a jazz singer. I wouldn't place myself on that footing. I wouldn't even enter that arena.

With Material for the Spine, I am interested in alloying a technical approach to the processes of improvisation. It is a system for exploring interior and exterior muscles of the back. It aims to bring consciousness to the dark side of the body, that is, the ‘other’ side, or the inside, those sides not much self-seen, and to submit sensations from them to the mind for consideration.

One thing I like about jazz, kid, is that I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?

Even if I could, I wouldn't want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music.

At a time when individualism is becoming an endangered species, jazz represents a celebration of the individual.

Jazz is like the universe: it's been expanding since its creation and it's connected to everything.

I have been using small teardrop jazz picks since I was, like, 14.

I like jazz but actually I didn't love it enough to study it for four years. It was boring.

Since about 1980 Kenny Werner has been one of jazz’s unsung heroes

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

My dad listened to a load of jazz - Mahavishnu, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock.

Are you stalking me, Mr. Fulton?" The idea both amused and horrified Jazz.

Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world.

Jazz has always been a melting pot of influences and I plan to incorporate them all.

There are a lot of records coming out, in every field of music, not just jazz.

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

Without the jazz influence, the Black Sabbath drumming would be very different.

The bad jazz that a cat blows wails long after he’s cut out.

In 1994, I started touring again and I recorded two albums for Chesky Jazz.

...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing.

We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city.

I love good rock'n'roll, blues and jazz, gospel, and a little reggae.

I'm really not this jazz traditionalist guy you've been making me out to be all of these years.

I am friends with the most amazing musicians that can do pop, rap, punk and jazz.

Dizzy, Duke and Charlie Parker were the greatest jazz legends of all time.

Even though I'm a jazz-trained drummer, I cut my teeth playing rock.

I used to sing in jazz clubs with a friend until she went another way.

Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.

We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.

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

I think everybody has to kind of decide what the word 'jazz' means to them, and that's fine.

I grew up in the theater, and you can't improvise Shakespeare and Ibsen. You have to speak the language. But obviously, in a contemporary film, there's often room for improvisation and spontaneous things that happen. As long as I know what I'm trying to achieve in the scene, and when something comes up, I know that the response is genuine, I'm comfortable. That's really how I build everything.

I wasn't a trained Mickey Mouse club performer. I played in jazz clubs and restaurants.

Like democracy itself, jazz has structure, but within it you can say almost anything.

I have grown up singing Rabindra Sangeet and when I was 16, I started training in jazz.

I'm a classically trained jazz pianist - I've been playing since I was 3 years old.