“Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells.”

—  Charles Mingus

Quoted in "What'd I Say?" : The Atlantic Story : 50 Years of Music (2001) by Ahmet M. Ertegun; also partially quoted in What Is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians As Artists, Critics, and Activists (2002) by Eric C. Porter, p. 118, and Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz And the Making of the Sixties (2005) by Scott Saul, p. 154
Context: Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells. Fine jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra run around the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells." by Charles Mingus?
Charles Mingus photo
Charles Mingus 18
American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader 1922–1979

Related quotes

Kit Carson photo

“When he seed that he give a big yell, for my scalp, an' at me he jumped. …then the Injun killed me.”

Kit Carson (1809–1868) American frontiersman and Union Army general

One of Carson's yarns, as quoted by an old trapper in Edwin Legrand Sabin, Kit Carson Days (1809-1868) (1914) p. 505
Context: Well, I'll tell ye. I war down on the plains, an' the Comanches got after me. Thar war 'bout five hundred of 'em, an' they chased me. We run an' we run, an' my hoss war killed an' I clum a sort o' butte. Thar war a leetle split or cañon in it, an' I run up this. One big red rascal kep' right on my heels; my gun war busted, but I had my knife. The split narrered an' narrered, an got smaller an' smaller, an' suddenly it pinched out; an' thar I war, at the end. So I turned, with my knife, an' when he come on I struck at him. But the walls o' the split war so near together that I hit the rock, an' busted my knife squar' off at the hilt. When he seed that he give a big yell, for my scalp, an' at me he jumped.... then the Injun killed me.

Glen Cook photo

“He jumped down, started waving his arms around while he went to squeaking and squealing in one of those languages wizards use so the rest of us will think there is something terribly strange and mystical about what they do, kind of like lawyers.”

Glen Cook book She Is the Darkness

Source: She Is the Darkness (1997), Chapter 41 (p. 412)

Janet Evanovich photo

“Are we fighting?" I asked Morelli.
"No. Were discussing."
"Are you sure?"
"Am I yelling?" Morelli asked. "Is my face purple? Are the cords on my neck standing out? Am I waving my arms around?"
"No."
"The were not fighting.”

Janet Evanovich book Sizzling Sixteen

Source: Sizzling Sixteen

Charles de Gaulle photo

“Of course one can jump up and down yelling Europe! Europe! Europe! But it amounts to nothing and it means nothing.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Bien entendu, on peut sauter sur sa chaise comme un cabri en disant l’Europe ! l’Europe ! l’Europe ! mais cela n’aboutit à rien et cela ne signifie rien.
Interview on a presidential campaign, December 1965 INA archive of the video http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&id_notice=I00012536 (De Gaulle meant that he wanted to build a European Union on realities, i.e. the existing nation-states with their respective interests – not on slogans and abstractions)
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

“Of course that's Bud and Laurindo. I liked Laurindo very much, and I love some of the tunes he does. In fact, I've been doing some piano transcriptions of some guitar things of his, and we recently recorded a tune of his. This particular thing again—how are you going to equate it? As jazz? As Brazilioan music or what? I wiould much rather hear Laurindo in his native habitat. I know he and Bud have been associated this way before, yet I don't feel that a real good rapport goes on between them. The constant mixing—half-jazz, half-Brazillian—I don't think it's good. You lose certain features of the one when you try to come out with the other. Let's give that three stars.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Reviewing  "Tocata" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a940h3-1NV0 from Brazilliance; as quoted in "Clare Fischer: Blindfold Test" http://www.mediafire.com/view/fix6ane8h54gx/Clare_Fischer#rjvay58eo774rhe

Heath Ledger photo

“In this industry, interest in you comes in waves, it's so tidal. And so I don't really want to jump on the first wave that comes along.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Quoted in "Heath Ledger's Lonesome Trail" http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/9448111/heath_ledgers_lonesome_trail/print, Rolling Stone, March 23, 2006.

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Beyond This Horizon

Source: Beyond This Horizon (1948; originally serialized in 1942), Chapter 15, “Probably a blind alley—”, p. 147
Context: Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.

Laozi photo

“A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honor people, They fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves."”

Laozi book Tao Te Ching

A longer paraphrase of this quotation, with modern embellishments, is often attributed to Laozi: see "Misattributed" below.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 17

Sue Monk Kidd photo

“You can't stop your heart from loving, really -- it's like standing out there in the ocean yelling at the waves to stop.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

John Fante photo

“Tonight there was music in the saloon, a piano and a violin; two fat women with hard masculine faces and short haircuts. Their song was Over the Waves.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ta de da da, and I watched Camilla dancing with her beer tray. Her hair was so black, so deep and clustered, like grapes hiding her neck. This was a sacred place, this saloon. Everything here was holy, the chairs, the tables, that rag in her hand, that sawdust under her feet. She was a Mayan princess and this was her castle. I watched the tattered huaraches glide across the floor, and I wanted those huaraches. I would like them to hold in my hands against my chest when I fell asleep. I would like to hold them and breathe the odor of them.
Ask the Dust (1939)

Related topics