Bandstand Quotes & Sayings

The whole American pop culture started in Philadelphia with 'American Bandstand' and the music that came out of that city. — Daryl Hall

I wish we could just stay on the bandstand, it's so peaceful up here. — Rahsaan Roland Kirk

I have similar feelings, actually. The intimacy of a club: you can see the people, you can almost feel them; you can't beat that. People will say things, and shout out, it's almost like they're up on the bandstand with you. — Benny Green

How did we lose our culture? Black people used to all do the same thing on Saturdays. We all watched "Soul Train" and "American Bandstand", got our fashion and dance tips, and then we emulated it and bought those records that we heard. Now it seems like there is no culture. The school of fish are all separate. Everybody's just randomized, listening to their own thing in their earbuds, and there's no uniformity. That bothers me. — DJ Quik

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail. — Charlie Parker

I am the Alexander Graham Bell of the phone company, the Christopher Columbus of America because after 'The Twist' everything changed, .. Watch the films from 1958 up to 1959, and watch American Bandstand during that time. After the song came out, everything was different. — Chubby Checker

My granddad was an evangelist, and my grandma, she was as tough as nails. She watched 'American Bandstand' every day when she was in her 80s, 90s. She loved rock music. I never had anyone in my family that was anti-rock n' roll. — Alice Cooper

The thing in jazz that will get Bix Beiderbecke out of his bed at two o'clock in the morning, pick that cornet up and practice into the pillow for another two or three hours, or that would make Louis Armstrong travel around the world for fifty plus years non stop, just get up out of his sick bed, crawl up on the bandstand and play, the thing that would make Duke Ellington, the thing that would make Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, the thing that would make all of these people give their lives for this, and they did give their lives, is that it gives us a glimpse into what America is going to be when it becomes itself. And this music tells you that it will become itself. And when you get a taste of that, there's just nothing else you're going to taste that's as sweet. — Wynton Marsalis

This is our bandstand. If you don't want to play, get up off the instrument and leave. — Wynton Marsalis

Dude, you are not equating being on that lame-ass Star Search wannabe show with hosting American Bandstand, are you? — Keith R.A. DeCandido

How great musicians demonstrate a mutual respect and trust on the bandstand can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life, understanding what it means to be a global citizen in the most modern sense. — Wynton Marsalis

In East Bangor, Pennsylvania (population 800), there's a little diner named for the trolley that used to take people to the once-bustling steel town of Bethlehem. The proprietors have adorned the walls with photographs of other local things that are no more. There's one of the East Bangor band, a group of about twenty men and boys, in uniform, in front of a bandstand draped with bunting. There's also one of the Kaysers, a local baseball club, on the day of an exhibition ballgame against the Philadelphia Athletics. These were Connie Mack's A's, which team in those early 1930s featured Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane, and Lefty Grove. How did a village of under a thousand people manage to have its own band? How did a cluster of slate-belt villages field a regular baseball club, apparently good enough to stay on the same field for nine innings with the Philadelphia Athletics? What — Anthony M. Esolen

The bandstand is a sacred place. — Wynton Marsalis

This is the Propylon." He waved toward a stone path lined with crumbling columns. "One of the main gates into the Olympic valley."
"Rubble!" said Leo
"And over there - " Frank pointed to a square foundation that looked like the patio for a Mexican restaurant - "is the Temple of Hera, one of the oldest structures here."
"More rubble!" Leo said.
"And that round bandstand-looking thing - that's the Philipeon, dedicated to Philip of Macedonia."
"Even more rubble! First rate rubble! — Rick Riordan

Dick Clark's 'American Bandstand' spread the gospel of American pop music and teenage style that transcended the regional boundaries of our country and united a youth culture that eventually spread its message throughout the entire world. — John Oates

The bandstand is an incredible space. It is really a sacred space. One of the things that is really sacred about it is that you have no opportunity to think about the future, or the past. — Stefon Harris

Someone like Jay-Z does have a timeless quality, but it's much different than ours. You can look back at something like "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors or the music that was on American Bandstand in the 1950s-'60s. — Chuck D

The park was a scruffy patch of grass, muddy in winter and dusty in summer, set about with a few dozen trees, a bandstand, and a pond on which swam a family of depraved and malevolent ducks. — Philip Pullman

I started to study the flute in 1951. The flute has been utilized by African-American musicians as far back as the early Twenties. If you take a look at some of the old pictures of Chick Webb, then you will see the flute right there on the bandstand among the woodwinds. — Yusef Lateef

The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn. — Louis Armstrong

The best practice you can get is on the bandstand, but in between gigs I feel I have to stay in shape. — Bill Bruford

My early childhood memories center around this typical American country store and life in a small American town, including 4th of July celebrations marked by fireworks and patriotic music played from a pavilion bandstand. — Frederick Reines

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton's and couldn't play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked. — Miles Davis

One week before my 17th birthday, I had a blind date with June Rose, a television actress on network soap operas, a model, and a regular on the popular Dick Clark's Saturday night 'American Bandstand' show from New York. We were married five years later, one week after my graduation from Columbia. — Robert C. Merton

I get that
but why replace him with this guy? I mean, Dick Clark did American Bandstand. All this guy's done is deny that he's gay. — Keith R.A. DeCandido

Listen more to the other players on the bandstand than you do to yourself. — Bill Kirchen

My first day of teaching, I got hit in the head with a bandstand & needed 4 stitches. Welcome to #NYCity teaching in the 90s. — Ace Antonio Hall

I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say. — Narada Michael Walden

Some of the wise boys who say my music is loud, blatant and that's all should see the faces of the kids who have driven a hundred miles through the snow to see the band ... to stand in front of the bandstand in an ecstasy all their own. — Stan Kenton

MTV essentially killed 'American Bandstand' and 'Solid Gold,' because music videos are an easier way for pop artists to gain television exposure. — Don Cornelius

I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me! — Louis Armstrong

Cats on the bandstand, give them each a big hand, anyone who sweats like that must be all right. — Jerry Garcia

We got on American Bandstand, where kids would dance to a record and then rate it. We called ourselves Tom and Jerry. I was Jerry. — Paul Simon