Jazz Music Quotes - Page 10

• Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Space, Perfect

  Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe (1990). “Miles”, p.216, Simon and Schuster

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• I began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each other, were true because Bach had also composed that way.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Three, Way

  Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe (1990). “Miles”, p.322, Simon and Schuster

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• ...people will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand...That's what I thought was happening when Ornette hit town.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Hype, White

  Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe (1990). “Miles”, p.251, Simon and Schuster

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• Everything-everything-was communicated through the sound of the music. There were no other signals of any kind ever-no count-offs, head nods, spoken instructions...nothing.

  Chuck Israels

  Music, Sound, Jazz

  "Chuck Israels: Evans, Education And Philosophy". Interview with Sean Dietrich, www.allaboutjazz.com. May 27, 2010.

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• For some reason that only a sociologist might be able to accurately explain, the Brazilian Press was extremely unkind to me, reporting only selective derogatory untruthful rumors (some of which are still around), harsh criticism, and unwarranted sarcasm. I was very hurt by this. It was such great disappointment... When I came back from Brazil at that time, I made a promise to myself that I would never, ever again sing in Brazil. So far [as of 2002], I have kept this promise, having declined each and every invitation or proposals to perform in Brazil. Once was enough!

  Astrud Gilberto

  Music, Hurt, Disappointment

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• Jazz isn't like pop, where you sell millions of records with a hit. Your spirit and soul aren't important in pop music. But jazz is like classical music. If people like you, they'll remember you and you'll last forever.

  Freddie Hubbard

  Music, Remember You, Remembers You

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• I was talented but crazy, semi-autistic and eccentric.

  Andrew Hill

  Music, Crazy, Eccentric

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• Miles got a mystique about him-plus he's at the top of his profession. And he's got way, way, way more money.

  Dizzy Gillespie

  Music, Way, Jazz

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• [My] style evolved, not changed, but I think evolved as I grew and matured. I don't think there was any kind of change I did in a deliberate way - I think I just evolved.

  Kenny Burrell

  Music, Thinking, Style

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• I finally realized that my relaxation is practicing the piano and writing. I've tried to do other things, but I've learned through the decades, that this is what I enjoy, practicing music and writing.

  Andrew Hill

  Music, Writing, Piano

  "A Fireside Chat With Andrew Hill". Interview with Fred Jung, jazzweekly.com.

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• There was a lot that was tricky about playing with [Thelonious Monk]. It's a musical language where there's really no lyrics. It's something you feel and you're hearing. It's like an ongoing conversation. You really had to listen to this guy. Cause he could play the strangest tempos, and they could be very in-between tempos on some of those compositions. You really had to listen to his arrangements and the way he would play them. On his solos, you'd really have to listen good in there. You'd have to concentrate on what you were doing as well.

  Roy Haynes

  Music, Play, Guy

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• These magic moments when rhythms and harmonies extend themselves and jell together and the people become another instrument. These things are priceless and they can't be learned; they can only be felt.

  Andrew Hill

  Music, Magic Moments, People

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• The Beatles came and everybody forgot about everything else. That was a friendly, together, hip interpersonal music, introducing electric sustain, and it captured the imagination of everybody. So improvising, even though it was in a very rich period in terms of impact on the public, the '6Os were very hard times on players financially.

  Paul Bley

  Music, Hard Times, Player

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• The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing.

  Billie Holiday

  Music, Feelings, Singing

  Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.163, Broadway Books

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• [Lee Morgan] was the only young cat that scared me when he played. He had so much fire and natural feeling. I had more technique, but he had that feeling. People seemed to like him more than they like me at the beginning.

  Freddie Hubbard

  Music, Cat, Fire

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• Don't make the mistakes I made of not taking care of myself. Please, keeps your chops cool and don't overblow. If you are going to play hard, be sure to warm up. I'd get carried away trying to stay right with the momentum [of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers]. I used to try and play like Coltrane and solo for 30 or 40 choruses. It all caught up with me.

  Freddie Hubbard

  Music, Art, Mistake

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• I never thought that the music called "jazz" was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.

  Miles Davis

  Music, Museums, Glasses

  Miles Davis, Quincy Troupe (1990). “Miles”, p.205, Simon and Schuster

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• I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.

  John Coltrane

  Music, Communication, Emotional

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• If people don't like it [my music] now, they will.

  Albert Ayler

  Music, People, Jazz

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• I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.

  Charles Mingus

  Music, Art, Player

  "What Is A Jazz Composer?". Charles Mingus' liner notes for "Let My Children Hear Music", album composed by Charles Mingus, January/February 1972.

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• Bebop was like humming along to Mitch Miller to me.

  Albert Ayler

  Music, Bebop, Jazz

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• Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.

  John Coltrane

  Music, Men, Knowing

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• It was so interesting, when [John Coltrane] created A Love Supreme. He had meditated that week. I almost didn't see him downstairs. And it was so quiet! There was no sound, no practice! He was up there meditating, and when he came down he said, "I have a whole new music!" He said, "There is a new recording that I will do, I have it all, everything." And it was so beautiful! He was like Moses coming down from the mountain. And when he recorded it, he knew everything, everything. He said this was the first time that he had all the music in his head at once to record.

  Alice Coltrane

  Music, Beautiful, Practice

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• ...I got a call from a record company offering me a contract, I did not want to take it because the Lord had pointed me in the direction of spiritual activity...And then it was disclosed to me that I could do both spiritual and musical work. So for five years I executed that contract, and when it was finished, after I made the album Transfiguration, I didn't make another album until twenty-six years later. This new album, Translinear Light, came out of the pleading and constant appealing from my son Ravi Coltrane: 'Ma, please make a CD.' So I eventually agreed.

  Alice Coltrane

  Music, Spiritual, Son

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• You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

  Roscoe Mitchell

  Music, Jazz, Composition

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