Quotes About Jazz

There's a certain phraseology involved in jazz, and I've moved away from that.

When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else.

I can dance. I like hip hop and stuff and jazz movements, but I'm horrible in ballet. I tried.

I mix everything up. A museum curator once said to me that there is a great jazz component to the way I do things because good jazz is improvisation and draws elements from all different cultures. And that's the way I do everything - the way I dress and decorate.

I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.

To me, Bill's musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.

I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it's not part of the musical mainstream anymore.

What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.

Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.

Chick Corea was a great influence on me, musically, as I was growing up.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.

I'm a jazz musician in that I have achieved Grade 3 on the French horn.

You know, it's funny... when you're making money, people don't think you're playing jazz. Now when you're not making money, people think that you're a good jazz musician.

As a jazz musician, you have individual power to create the sound. You also have a responsibility to function in the context of other people who have that power also.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.

I don't think I've ever been true to jazz. There's always a kind of jazz element to what I do. There are a very few genres that I haven't tried out, really, in what I've been doing. As a jazz musician, you can kind of mess about with things with a certain level of musicianship, which helps.

It's funny to find there are still people around who think if a musician has schooling, it automatically makes him a lesser jazz player. But you don't learn jazz in school.

I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.

I'm a country musician. I know how to play jazz, and I can play rock. But I've had to fight my entire career to get a little respect from people who don't understand where I come from.

Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I'm a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.

Some musicians play blues, others classical jazz or bluegrass. I like to play political roles because I can merge my political interests with my creative interests.

I've met a lot of jazz musicians in my day, and they're all funny.

I never gave up on that idea, you know, that jazz musicians have the same opportunity as everybody else and that it's what you put on that record that makes the difference whether you sell it or not or are able to get it into people's households.