Quotes about jazz
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“Is it (Sports Night) a comedy or a drama? That's generally not a question I try and answer for myself before I'm going to write something. The example I would use is, if you're driving in your car and you're listening to a rock 'n' roll station on the radio and a song comes on, and in the song you hear elements of jazz and folk and you hear strings in there … it's not necessary to answer the question, "Is this jazz, is this folk, or is this rock?"”

Aaron Sorkin (1961) American screenwriter, producer, playwright

before you decide to listen to it and like it or not.
Interview for Comedy Central.

Cars, Question, Sport, Night

“I truly felt, ultimate objective aside, that the Marines had something beautiful about them. Fraternity, initiation, mentoring, honor, valor, duty—beautiful male attributes in a society in which masculinity is maligned. I can get a bit like that, a bit D. H. Lawrence, a bit jazzed on unexamined humanity. When I chatted on camera to a pair of perfectly assembled teen Marines who sat handsomely in their fatigues, rifles pristine and bolt upright at their sides, I was overwhelmed by the salvation that the military offers to boys that may otherwise have fallen through the cracks.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Beauty, Boy

“Jazz today can be spiritual, cerebral, motivating or moving. It can evoke tension, relaxation, laughter, tears. Surely jazz is truly the music of the era, combining stature, dignity and emotion with the highest musical ideals.”

John Dankworth (1927–2010) British musician

Jazz in Revolution (1998), concluding words.

Music, Motivation, Tear, Laughter

“The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them…I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

About the new modal style. Interviewed by The Jazz Review, 1958; Quotes in Paul Maher, ‎Michael K. Dorr (2009) Miles on Miles: Interviews and Encounters with Miles Davis, p. 18.
1950s

Music, Guy, Thinking

“I took the frets out of my bass after I was getting into jazz a lot and I wanted to have that upright sound.”

Jaco Pastorius (1951–1987) Musician, producer, educator

On why he played a fretless bass
Modern Electric Bass, Jaco Pastorius (1985)

“I think we'll soon see a new breed of musicians who have both a modern chordal sense (jazz) and a high comfort level with synthesizers and new breeds of sounds (from the electronica/techno/dj scene).”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Static Line interview, 1998

Thinking, Sense

“My background in music came from me playing drums and piano as a young child. My grandmother was a pianist and I was influenced by her and my parents were playing rock records which influenced my drumming. I was a fan of film scores, rock, classical, jazz, and hip-hop in my early years and tried to learn as much about each of those genres as possible. I began writing music in a serious way in my teen years while I was playing in various bands and orchestras.”

Brian Tyler (1972) American composer, producer, conductor, and film producer

Interview with Brian Tyler https://8dio.com/2012/12/05/interview-with-brian-tyler/ (December 5, 2012)

Music, Way, Parent, Learning

“Jazz, often called America's classical music, so influenced our culture that Americans named a decade after it. Like the country of its birth, jazz blends many traditions, such as African-American folk, rhythm and blues, French Creole classical form, and gospel. Through the creation and performance of music like jazz, black Americans were better able to exchange ideas freely across racial and cultural barriers. Before our Nation made significant strides in truly promoting equal justice and opportunity for all, black and white musicians in the genres of jazz, blues, and country played together in jam sessions, recording studios, and small bands. In many ways, their art preceded social change, allowing black and white musicians to meet as equals and to be judged on their musical ability, rather than the color of their skin. Their music also provided an outlet for African Americans to speak passionately and brilliantly to the rest of the Nation and the world.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Black Music (June 2001)

World, Justice, Art, Music

“Without the beat in the background, Jazz basically sounds like an armadillo was let loose on the keyboard”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Tinselworm (2008)

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

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

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.

“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.”

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

Dance

“Ladies and gentlemen, please don't associate me with any of this. This is not jazz. These are sick people.”

Charles Mingus (1922–1979) American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader

After angry altercations at a reunion gig (4 March 1955), as quoted in Myself When I Am Real : The Life and Music of Charles Mingus (2001) by Gene Santoro; Bud Powell was reportedly drunk, smashed the keyboard and walked off stage, and Charlie Parker stood at the microphone calling: "Bud Powell, Bud Powell." A week later Parker was dead of cirrhosis of the liver.

People

“I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it.”

Kathy Acker (1947–1997) American novelist, playwright, essayist, and poet

Kathy Acker: Where does she get off?
Context: I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing. And about sex.
Writing for me is about my freedom. When I was a kid, my parents were like monsters to me, and the world extended from them. They were horrible. And I was this good little girl — I didn't have the guts to oppose them. They told me what to do and how to be. So the only time I could have any freedom or joy was when I was alone in my room. Writing is what I did when I was alone with no one watching me or telling me what to do. I could do whatever I wanted. So writing was really associated with body pleasure — it was the same thing. It was like the only thing I had.

Thinking, Time

“Hannibal is on the jazz.”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Quotes from acting

“I want more time with Jason. I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. But that is not going to happen. I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet.”

Amy Krouse Rosenthal (1965–2017) author, a radio show host and producer, and filmmaker

From her essay [Amy Krouse Rosenthal, You May Want to Marry My Husband, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/style/modern-love-you-may-want-to-marry-my-husband.html, 22 November 2019, The New York Times, March 3, 2017], published 10 days before her death, as quoted in [Stevens, Heidi, Chicago author Amy Krouse Rosenthal's 'You May Want to Marry My Husband' essay went viral. Now her husband is honoring her life with a giant yellow umbrella in Lincoln Park., https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/heidi-stevens/ct-life-stevens-monday-amy-krause-rosenthal-lincoln-park-0513-story.html, 22 November 2019, The Chicago Times]

Children, Time, Personality, Night

“Jazz in itself is not struggling…That is, the music itself is not struggling. It and the baseball history you talk about are two anchors of the African American cultural community. It’s the attitude that’s in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.”

August Wilson (1945–2005) American playwright

On not tossing certain facets of African American culture as relics in “AN INTERVIEW WITH AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT AUGUST WILSON” https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/25048/Tibbetts_AugustWIlson_2002.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y (John C. Tibbetts, 2002)

Music, History, Communication, Forgetting

“If we know each other’s history, we will be able to see parallels in this history. If the black students knew about the Jazz Quarter and the incredible historic events, I bet they would feel a certain pride. And the Central Americans would understand that there was a transformation and maybe have a little respect. Perhaps then there would maybe be more conversation between them. But if we don’t find those parallels, there’s going to be an incredible war.”

Helena Maria Viramontes (1954) American writer

On how people might benefit from learning each other’s history in “The Excavation of Identity as a Political Act: A Conversation with Helena Maria Viramontes” https://www.sampsoniaway.org/interviews/2017/01/24/the-excavation-of-identity-as-a-political-act-a-conversation-with-helena-maria-viramontes/ in Sampsonia Way (2017 Jan 24)

War, Feeling, History, Understanding

“Let us be on the side of those who want people to be free to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, and to decide, in an adult way and provided they do not infringe the rights of others, the code by which they wish to live; and on the side of experiment and brightness, of better buildings and better food, of better music (jazz as well as Bach) and better books, of fuller lives and greater freedom. In the long run these things will be more important than the most perfect of economic policies.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

The Labour Case (Penguin, 1959), p. 146
1950s

People, Books, Making love, Food

“It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

https://owlquote.com/quotes/it-is-veneer-rouge-5g358g7
Other works

Making love, Art, Football

“So often the story of rock’n’roll is told from a male perspective. So often it feels like men own music. And I still get as angry and frustrated about that as I ever did. Reading those women’s accounts of their lives has reminded me how much they paved the way back then. And history too often erases the women, in all art forms. Every single published story of a female artist goes a small way towards redressing the balance, and is another one saved from the fire.I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer, a blues singer – no category…My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment.”

Tracey Thorn (1962) English singer and songwriter

On women being excluded from music history in “Tracey Thorn: ‘I went through a phase of carrying Camus under my arm’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/tracey-thorn-interview-another-planet-memoir in The Guardian (2020 Jan 25)

Women, Men, Art, Music

“I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer, a blues singer – no category…My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment.”

Roberta Flack (1937) American singer

On her career trajectory in “Roberta Flack: 'My music is my expression of what I feel in a moment'” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/21/roberta-flack-interview-music-grammys in The Guardian (2020 Jan 21)

Music, Feeling, Soul

“Why would someone use magic to kill a jazz musician in the middle of his set? I mean, I have my problems with the New Thing and the rest of the atonal modernists but I wouldn’t kill someone for playing it–at least not if I wasn’t trapped in the same room.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 1, “Body and Soul” (p. 19)

Problem

Quotes about jazz page 2

Quotes about jazz
page 2