Jon Gordon Quotes About Jazz

Quotes about: Jazz

• Justin Di Cioccio led a jazz program at Music and Art, but there was no jazz in Performing Arts. After they joined, it became Laguardia School of Arts.

  Jon Gordon

  Art, School, Jazz

• There are great jazz educators that I meet all the time. I met a guy named Paul Luchessi who has a high school jazz program in Fresno. And Bob Athayde who runs a junior high program in Lafayette, California. And man, we walked into these schools and Paul Luchessi said, "Jon is the composer of Paradox." A hundred or something kids started to applaud. "What? You guys know that? I'm so blown away.

  Jon Gordon

  Running, School, Kids

• By the latter part of high school, by the middle of junior year in high school, Jay Rodriguez played me some Irakere records that that Paquito [D'Rivera] was on. And he also played me and our friend, Curtis Haywood, some Phil Woods records. And when I heard Phil, I just about lost my mind. I was playing the Charlie Parker Omnibook as part of my lessons. This was the '80s. There was no YouTube and all that. And we had three or four jazz records at that point.

  Jon Gordon

  School, Years, Mind

• Justin [Di Cioccio] was [at Laguardia School of Arts]. He later took over at Manhattan. But I knew Justin through the McDonald's band, which at the time I was finishing high school and starting college, I got involved with. I was not that heavily involved with the school at MSM my first year there. I took a semester off to start my 2nd year. Took classes I felt like taking during my third semester, but by the start of my third year, September of '86, they began the undergraduate jazz program and I joined that program.

  Jon Gordon

  Art, School, College

• You do [jazz] because you love it and hope many some others may as well. You do this because you need it.

  Jon Gordon

  Needs, May, Jazz

• When I was 13, 14, 15, I had played in a couple of jazz ensembles. I didn't know anything about harmony, about II-V-I, though I had learned my scales with Caesar [DiMauro].

  Jon Gordon

  Couple, Ensemble, Jazz

• Barry Harris had a club called Jazz Cultural Theater and there were sessions there on a regular basis. I remember being there and sitting in with [Charles] McPherson and Barry being there, and just smiling at me. He didn't talk to me much at the time, he just came up and gave me a smile, which meant a lot. I've since gotten to know him and been around him a little bit.

  Jon Gordon

  Littles, Sitting, Clubs

• I was really falling in love with jazz and dedicating myself in that direction.

  Jon Gordon

  Falling In Love, Fall, Jazz

• We spent all day together [with Phil Wood] at that one particular lesson, which was maybe the third or fourth lesson, in from 11:00 in the morning to 11:00 at night. We often did a lot of varied things. It wasn't just about jazz language and the saxophone.

  Jon Gordon

  Morning, Night, Together

• I would sit in at a jazz brunch [at sweet Basil] with Eddie Chamblee, who was a great tenor player. Really a kind man. The whole band was great.

  Jon Gordon

  Sweet, Player, Men

• [Charlie Parker] was kind of a sponge and intrigued by it all.That's similar to what Phil [Woods] told me about Bird, too. Like he was into cooking. He was just into a lot of things. Yeah, it's about dealing with bebop and jazz and Trane [John Coltrain] and post-Trane and knowing the history. But you've got to live. You have to experience things. Know something in this world. So it was a very deep education about what it means to try and be an artist.

  Jon Gordon

  Mean, Artist, Knowing

• [Eddie Locke] had a huge impact in my life. He was a great jazz drummer. He was mentored by Papa Joe Jones and he played for many years with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge and actually got me on a gig with Roy Eldridge when I was 20 that I'll never forget.

  Jon Gordon

  Impact, Years, Papa

• The first jazz cruise that I was on was '91. I played with Maria Schneider and John Fedchock's band. Got to meet some amazing people that week.

  Jon Gordon

  People, Band, Firsts

• [Manhattan School Of Music] were kind of just getting the jazz program up and going when I first started there. I was 17 in September of 1984 when I started there.

  Jon Gordon

  School, Manhattan, Firsts

• I did, I was in Europe a lot. I would say, mid 20s to late 30s. Less so in the last ten or twelve years. Based on some political stuff and other things, I think I'm not the only musician, the only American jazz musician that's not going to Europe quite as much. I think we're seen a little differently in the world, unfortunately, than we were pre-Iraq invasion and things like that.

  Jon Gordon

  Thinking, Years, Europe

• [Manhattan School Of Music] didn't' have a jazz undergraduate program at the time so I played a semester in the big band. There was a graduate program. But I wasn't really that involved in jazz yet.

  Jon Gordon

  School, Band, Manhattan

• Now we also need people who just love to listen to the music. And we need people that want to work to facilitate it. That want to do work, have somebody like Bret Primack, the jazz video guy.

  Jon Gordon

  People, Guy, Needs

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