Quotes About Improvisation

Jazz is about being in the moment.

It takes an intelligent ear to listen to Jazz.

Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything.

Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.

Jazz is a beautiful word. I love it.

Don't use your brain to play it, let your feelings guide your fingers.

You must in your music be wavering like the wind; sometimes wanton, sometimes drooping, sometimes grave and staid, otherwhile effeminate; and the more variety you show, the better shall you please.

I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.

The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.

If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.

Never play anything the same way twice.

I can play all I know in eight bars.

The piano ain't got no wrong notes.

There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.

What I'm doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word - I love it.

In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

I want less and less control with music. Just playing music without any idea of composition or writing.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever, as long as you don't have too much of it.

Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'

Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

It's very important that the music has a sense of adventure to it, and that it's done by the seat of your pants. There's a kind of nervy element about it.