Jazz Music Quotes

My grandma was a church organist for 40 years, and she got me into jazz music and great songwriters, Harold Arlen, George Gershwin, all those folks. I can’t do it, but I have a profound respect for it.

If you don’t already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.

I’ve got all of the old school vinyls from the ’70s – even further back, like the jazz music in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s. Then I’ve got all the ’80s stuff underground, hip-hop when hip-hop really first started. The ’90s stuff. All of the good stuff, because I’m really into music, and it helps me create new songs now.

I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.

I played Big Band jazz music. I wasn’t into rock and roll. I was just there because it was a living. I surprised everyone. I’m still surprising people.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

People think jazz music is all standards and the Great American Songbook. But it’s really about the sensibility, the feel you bring to the music.

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

I’d love to see a Nirvana biopic. I loved them when I was younger. I really like jazz music, so I’d like to see a Billie Holiday biopic – she was a fascinating woman.

I want a church service with New Orleans funeral jazz music. I’d like people to say a few words about me and I may have my ashes scattered in the sea.

Kansas City, I would say, did more for jazz music, black music, than any other influence at all. Almost all their joints that they had there, they used black bands. Most musicians who amounted to anything, they would flock to Kansas City because that’s the place where jobs were plentiful.

Listening to the stories told in jazz music and how those artists expressed their truths about the times and what they were dealing with is what struck me the most.

This is one of the major purposes of soul and jazz music; to state what you feel.

So the whole basis for jazz music is based on the fact that the bass player could not play his instrument.

I was heavily influenced by big voices when I was younger. People like Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Patti Labelle really spoke to me. When I got older, I was into Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and Lauryn Hill, but it wasn’t until I started working with a voice coach that I really dove into jazz music.

I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad’s quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.

One of the things I love about jazz music is that intent is first and execution is second. In classical music, execution is first and intent is second, meaning that you must first learn a piece before you can truly add your interpretation to it.

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean.

I love jazz music and sad music. I’m a sentimental guy. I’m a romantic guy.

I guess certain kinds of jazz music could be Crunk. But the average jazz song, no, it’s not Crunk.

Yeah, I grew up playing lots of jazz music in school.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, you take all the drama out of it.

Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm.

Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain, so much beauty of raw emotion and passion.

When you are busy with all the live shows and bands, world music and jazz music, it takes time to come back and do a pop album. It needs its own length of time.

If you met my dad, I think a lot of things would be put to rest. Because my pops is a pretty silly guy. But, Coldcut, they’re based in the U.K. I’m a big fan of jazz music, so American music has had a big influence on what I listen to.

And more than anything, I like the improvisation of jazz. That’s the same thing with DJ-ing. There’s so much improvisation you can do with cuttin’ and scratchin’ that’s reminiscent of jazz music, because it’s all about how you feel. You’re capturing a vibe and just going with it.

Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man – it’s like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.

I really love jazz, but I will never be a jazz musician as much as I dream. But, I think that the jazz music I love is there in my music.

Early on I was more interested in gypsy jazz music until rock and roll came around and I listened to a lot of Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan.

I discovered flamenco when I was 14, before I even got involved with jazz music. I was so crazy about flamenco music. I wanted to be a flamenco guitar player.

I like to say, jazz music is kind of like my musical equivalent of comfort food. You know, it’s always where I go back to when I just want to feel sort of grounded.

Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.