Jazz Music Quotes - Page 2

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  There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Two, Jazz

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.326, Oxford Paperbacks

  144 Copy quote

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• There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. they are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence.

  Stan Getz

  Individuality, Quality, Essentials

  30 Copy quote

• True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.

  George Gershwin

  Music, Inspiration, People

  59 Copy quote

• Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Marriage, Work

  Music Is My Mistress act 8 "Pedestrian Minstrel" (1973)

  24 Copy quote

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• The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.

  Louis Armstrong

  Music, Memories, Night

  22 Copy quote

• All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.

  John Coltrane

  Music, Law, Jazz

  34 Copy quote

• Make no mistake, this music is for everyone. Jazz is not an exclusive, elite club. Go ahead, listen to your Snoop Doggy Dog, Pearl Jam, Garth Brooks, but add a little Ellington, Basie and Coltrane to your life as well.

  Christian McBride

  Music, Dog, Mistake

  9 Copy quote

• I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.

  Paul Desmond

  Music, Jazz, Week

  52 Copy quote
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  Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

  76 Copy quote

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• There is no such thing as a wrong note.

  Art Tatum

  Music, Jazz, Notes

  52 Copy quote

• Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

  Sonny Rollins

  Music, Jazz And Life, Type

  40 Copy quote

• Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

  Ornette Coleman

  Music, Memorable, Night

  48 Copy quote

• If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.

  Louis Armstrong

  Life, Music, Practice

  120 Copy quote

• Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now.

  Pat Martino

  Music, Jazz And Life, Musical

  47 Copy quote

• Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.

  Jelly Roll Morton

  Music, Style, May

  1938 In Downbeat, Aug.

  43 Copy quote

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• Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Music, Sound, Jazz

  5 Copy quote

• I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.

  Duke Ellington

  Funny, Music, Girl

  57 Copy quote

• Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.

  Carmen McRae

  Inspirational, Music, Yeast

  57 Copy quote

• If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!

  Duke Ellington

  Inspirational, Music, Feel Good

  18 Copy quote

• Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Play, Bullshit

  81 Copy quote

• Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.

  Charlie Parker

  Motivational, Music, Humorous

  "Words of Wisdom". Book edited by William Safire and Leonard Safir, p. 435, 1990.

  116 Copy quote

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• When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.

  Eric Dolphy

  Music, Air, African American

  Holiday magazine, Vol. 58,p. 13, 1977.

  67 Copy quote

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• I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Art, Opportunity

  "The Best of the Music Makers". Book by George Thomas Simon, 1979.

  98 Copy quote

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• Trane was the father. Pharoah was the son. I was the holy ghost.

  Albert Ayler

  Music, Father, Son

  14 Copy quote

• If you don't like Louis Armstrong, you don't know how to love.

  Mahalia Jackson

  Music, How To Love, Jazz

  9 Copy quote