Quotes About Influence

I respect Jay-Z. I like him.

I've hung out with Jay-Z a couple of times, and he was awesome.

With Jay-Z, it's hard not to be amazing.

I learned so much from listening to Jay-Z, M.O.P. and Gang Starr.

When you've got certain people like Jay-Z wanting to work with me, then it makes you think people do love me.

If we got into a time machine and went back to the 1700s, classical and baroque music would have been the equivalent of Beyonce and Jay-Z.

Jay-Z just got that longevity. He can put out anything at any time and everybody will love it. He'll never get old.

Eminem is a major star. Em and JAY-Z have achieved things that I have never came close to achieving in my life. They are both major stars in Hip Hop. And to top it off, they are both very lyrical.

I have respect for the greats, like Jay-Z.

I want to expand jazz; I don't want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.

Grover Washington was my main influence, and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

I never liked blues and I really didn't like jazz. I liked Chuck Berry.

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

Artie Shaw was way ahead of most clarinetists and most jazz players.

I have been influenced by music. I grew up listening to blues, jazz and all.

Most of the people that I learned and experienced jazz with have been with foreign white people, mostly from France. Excluding my family.

My dad is a big jazz fan, and that was the reason I first got into jazz.

George Benson conquered many different genres, from pop ballads to R&B to jazz.

I like a lot of electronica. I like older jazz rather than newer.

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

I do feel a responsibility because most people like me that are my age or younger, they don't quite make it over to the jazz side. They flirt with it, but they don't quite marry it.