Jazz Musician Quotes & Sayings

The jazz guitarist Peter Sprague calls his home recording studio SpragueLand, but sometimes it seems that the moniker better captures the way he has turned the entire southland into his own musical playground. Sprague is a highly versatile musician who draws on the wellsprings of jazz and Brazilian music as primary influences. — Andrew S. Gilbert

You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here's this vital energy, and that element doesn't even know it exists! — Joseph Jarman

I don't think of myself as a jazz musician but a medicine man. — Abdullah Ibrahim

CIA Interrogator:
Have you ever met any jazz musicians you would describe, or who would describe themselves, as anarchists?
Bartholomew 'Barley' Scott Blair:
Hmmm ... ah, there was a trombone player, Wilfred Baker.
Bartholomew 'Barley' Scott Blair:
He's the only jazz musician I can think of who is completely devoid of anarchist tendencies. — John Le Carre

Many an American jazz musician has been beguiled by the lush melodies and sumptuous rhythms of Brazilian music, but Peter Sprague has taken the romance a good deal further than most. — Andrew S. Gilbert

I would not describe myself as an avid jazz fan and I am not a jazz musician myself. However, that is not to say that jazz does not play a vital and important role in my life. — Nat Wolff

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear. — Ralph Ellison

I went to Juilliard in New York and used to do cabarets just for fun. Occasionally, I would get together with a jazz musician and play at a restaurant for cash. And I've done some background vocals for recording artists. — Nicole Beharie

I don't listen to a lot of music when I have my free time. But I'll go to a jazz club and have a drink and listen to a good jazz musician. Or sometimes in the morning, if I want to put myself in a good mood, I'll put on some Latin music. — Joshua Bell

If he's a true symphony artist, he knows better than that because he knows that the only truly creative musician is the jazz musician. — Buddy Rich

I was in this public high school in Princeton, and it had this topnotch jazz program - if you were a musician of any kind of caliber, your holy grail was to be in that orchestra. It was that claim to fame of the school, of the town, other than the university. But it was better than the university band. — Damien Chazelle

If you truly have expertise - and expertise can be say a chess master who has really mastered something or an artist or a musician of some sort you know if you give a jazz musician ... — Sheena Iyengar

I always tell my students when you're going to be a jazz musician the first thing you've got to do is be a professional musician, and that means you have to feed yourself with the instrument. — Lester Bowie

Some people are born with a brain that has this weird, magical mathematical thing that makes them an amazing jazz musician. — Andy Richter

It's always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn't. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it's music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic ... You're pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I'm a musician. — David Sanborn

My father is a jazz musician, so I grew up hearing jazz. My parents loved it, but I didn't like it. It went on for too long. Yes, I had certain teachers that really inspired me, like Danny Barker, and John Longo. And I had no idea that I would have any impact on jazz. — Wynton Marsalis

I fear that I won't get better and that I won't have time to practice. To be called a "jazz musician" - it's a big responsibility. — Esperanza Spalding

Normally, things are viewed in these little segmented boxes. There's classical, and then there's jazz; romantic, and then there's baroque. I find that very dissatisfying. I was trying to find the thread that connects one type of music - one type of musician - to another, and to follow that thread in some kind of natural, evolutionary way. — Jerry Lee Lewis

My dad was all about music. He was a musician, leading a band when I was born. His band was active all through the 40s. He'd started it in the late 20s and 30s. According to the scrapbook, his band was doing quite well around the Boston area. During the Depression they were on radio. It was a jazz-oriented band. He was a trumpet player, and he wrote and arranged for the band. He taught me how to play the piano and read music, and taught me what he knew of standard tunes and so forth. It was a fantastic way to come up in music. — Chick Corea

Many jazz musicians affect a misunderstood-genius air when they play, which alienates the audience and breaks down the communications of the music. A musician's responsibility is to get as much of his art across as possible. Musicians used to be kept when only the rich could afford art, but now practically everyone can afford radios, stereo equipment, concert tickets, etc. A musician must learn to communicate to survive. — Gabor Szabo

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. — Benny Green

My short answer would be that there is no greatest jazz musician of the century. Jazz, like any valid art form, finds its greatness in its expression of the human spirit, and, to me, this can't be reduced to a contest. — Bennie Wallace

I got my love of jazz from my stepfather, who was a jazz musician. — Flea

Comedy is the drug, when they laugh it's like I'm a jazz musician and they hear it, and they get it. It's power to take the crowd wherever I want them to go. I love it when they laugh, especially when they relate through laughter. It's a beautiful thing. It also means I'm going to get paid, which is nice. — Alonzo Bodden

Once the jazz musician learns all the fundamentals they can keep track of a lot of choices in an instant. — Sheena Iyengar

Marijuana is taken by musicians. And I'm not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type ... — Harry J. Anslinger

Since my father is a musician as well, he taught me growing up that if you can play jazz, you can learn all instruments and write on them. He wanted me to be a songwriter that can do anything in any genre. I'm all about doing every genre. — Meghan Trainor

I don't like heroin, unless you're a jazz musician and then you have to be on it because jazz is the sound of heroin. — John Waters

When I was a kid, I wanted desperately to be a jazz musician. I would practice the trumpet for hours, but when I got braces, that messed up my ability to play, so all of a sudden I had all this free time. — Zach Woods

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting. — Charlie Trotter

Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style. — Gunther Schuller

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career. — Amy Ray

But the Oriental musician has a rough notation which he uses only as a reminder of a melody. He learns music, not by reading notes, but by listening to the performance of a teacher, getting the "feel" of it, and copying him, and this enables him to acquire rhythmic and tonal sophistications matched only by those Western jazz artists who use the same approach. — Alan W. Watts

The jazz and blues clubs are like the jazz and blues musicians - they're disappearing. — Buddy Guy

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago. — Louis Armstrong

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. — Laura Mvula

Food is merely a platform for condiments. — Peter Marshall

I have no illusions about being a genius musician. I pride myself on being a soldier, a warrior for jazz. I trained a lot of young people, and I've learned my lessons well. I'd like to keep the flame burning. — Phil Woods

I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician. — Dave Van Ronk

If you're making money people don't think you're playing Jazz. When you're not making money they think you're a great Jazz musician. — Pete Fountain

I started as a musician. I play the saxophone, but from the age of 17, I realised that it's very hard to make a living as a jazz musician in Australia. So I went for an audition and got an acting job and, fortunately, I completely fell in love with that. — John Polson

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. — Pete Fountain

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

But you listen to Coltrane and that's something human, something that's about elevation. It's like making love to a woman. It's about something of value, it's not just loud. It doesn't have that violent connotation to it. I wanted to be a jazz musician so bad, but I really couldn't. There was no way I could figure out to learn how to play. — Wynton Marsalis

The jazz musician's function is to feel, — Lennie Tristano

I grew up in a home filled with music and had an early appreciation of jazz since my dad was a jazz musician. Beginning at around age three I started singing with his band and jazz music has continued to be one of my three passions along with acting and writing. I like to say jazz music is my musical equivalent of comfort food. It's always where I go back to when I want to feel grounded, — Molly Ringwald

Well, I've been a musician my whole life. When I was two, I would sing the theme from Star Wars in my crib; my mom taped it for proof. Then, when I was five, I asked for a violin. No one knew why I would want one, but my wish was granted and I ended up a classically trained fiddler by age 12. The only problem with that was, when you're a classical violinist, everybody expects you to be satisfied with playing Tchaikovsky for the rest of your life, and saying you want to play jazz, rock, write songs, sing your songs, hook up your fiddle to a guitar amp, sleep with your 4-track recorder, mess around with synths, dress like Tinkerbell in combat boots, AND play Tchaikovsky is equivalent to spitting on the Pope. — Emilie Autumn

What separates great jazz musicians from average ones is Taste. Those who have taste consistently choose notes, tempos, timbres and voicings that seduce and satisfy attentive listeners. — Marc Myers

Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician — Wynton Marsalis

Jazz is a big thing with me. It's a very big passion of mine, to play it. I'm an amateur musician and I love everything about it. I was obsessed with jazz when I was 15 years old and I know a lot about it because I've loved it so much. — Woody Allen

I know I'm an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I'm not a jazz musician. I'm not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It's in between these areas. — Anthony Braxton

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. — Paul Horn

I don't really have a career as a jazz musician. I don't really have a career as a classical musician. I don't really have a career as a college professor, and yet I did all those things and I did them well. I put out some records in the 1980's and 1990's that changed the way some trumpet players played. — Paul Smoker

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also. — Yo-Yo Ma

I was a wise-a** college student of twenty at the time and a precocious musician, with somewhat of that screw-you-I'm-a-jazz-player attitude. — Gene Hull

When I'm working behind a camera, I feel like I'm trying to achieve something like a jazz musician does. — Jack Welpott

I'm not a jazz artist. Don't get me wrong now, it's all music to me. I just played music and if it's likeable, someone liked the sound, then fine, but I'm not interested in being a jazz musician. I don't consider myself a jazz musician. I don't have anything to do with that word. — Pharoah Sanders

He's not a performer, he's not a composer, he's not even a musician, but Norman Granz is Mr. Jazz. — Oscar Peterson

So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya. — Haruki Murakami

I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It's not like I'm cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do. — Carlos Santana

The age of 18 seemed the right time to try something different in my life. Moving to the U.K. was a risk, and I was never confident that I could ever make a full-time living being a musician, but I had to try. Initially, I worked as a jazz musician in pubs or with bands. — Manfred Mann

Many of the jazz musicians whom are no longer here. You don't realize that it's history when it is happening and then time passes and you look at a picture and you say "Wow, there is history attached to that." — Carol Friedman

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. — Jamie Cullum

In classical music, love is based on bitin'
imitation. It's not based on interpretation. A jazz musician, if he plays someone else's song, has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement. — Todd Boyd

I knew I could never be accepted as a straight-ahead jazz musician, nor would Iaccept myself as that. I would never be accepted as a minimalist. I wouldn't be adowntown composer. Because I find all orthodoxies, all doctrines to be ultimatelybanal. — Anthony Davis

The worst thing about the life of a jazz musician on the road is getting to the gig. Once you're there and playing, it's marvelous. — Dave Brubeck

Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden! — Toots Thielemans

My secret dream has always been to be a jazz musician. I tried the saxophone for a year or two when I was younger, but unfortunately I had to face the fact that I was not really talented! — Gaspard Ulliel

I started to listen to Japanese jazz musicians when I went to high school. Some people I listened to were Yosuke Yamashita, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Sadao Watanabe. — Hiromi

I started singing Folksongs with my mother when I was 6 years old. We sang at Folk festivals and concerts and schools. There was always music being played either on record, Jazz and Folk, by musician friends of my mother. I took to singing very early, I believe it has been a Gift I was born with. — Vicki Sue Robinson

I used to sing with my father's jazz band and then when I was ten years old a musician friend of his suggested that I try out for the first west coast production of Annie. — Molly Ringwald

I play classical music almost exclusively. I never mastered jazz or gospel in the way that my mother did. She was a fine improvisational musician. I pretty much have to stick to what's written on the page. — Condoleezza Rice

I actually wanted to be a jazz musician first. My grandparents introduced me to Louis Armstrong. I loved Louis Armstrong so I took up the trumpet and just did that every day and practiced that. — Douglas Booth

It might seem a contradiction but... the ability to improvise requires lots of practice. Ask any jazz musician. — Ted Agon

One of the most obvious aspects of the music to people who know jazz is: How does it feel in the swing? These are things that are very subtle and that jazz musician appreciate in a particular way. I appreciate the way Tommy Flanagan swings, the way that Barry Harris swings, the great pulse that Hank Jones and Bill Evans have - end every one of them is different. — Chuck Israels

Jazz musicians are the coolest people on the planet. Can I have some cool? — Jon Stewart

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music. — Herbie Hancock

I became a professional musician and played all kinds of music. I played bluegrass, I played classical music, and for many years, I played jazz. — Terry Teachout

He [Benny Carter] is all that every jazz musician the world over wants to be. He's performed 20,000 nights. How many shoes have been shined? How much mascara put on? Rouge? How many of those impossible bowties have been tied? How many love songs have been sung? How many dances have been danced? How many have passed to the sound of his music? It's been said that a man should not be forced to live up to his art. Benny Carter is one of the rare instances when we wonder whether the great art that a man has created can live up to him. — Wynton Marsalis

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician. — Charlie Haden

I met Gary (Burton) at the Wichita Jazz Festival when I was 18
he was one of my favorite musicians and I got to play a few tunes with him there. Shortly after that, I joined his band, which was the equivalent of joining the Beatles for me! He was, and still is, one of the greatest musicians I have ever been lucky enough to be around. — Pat Metheny

Europe was a very contentious subject in literature and yet jazz musicians still depended on Europe. Now it's not such a big deal. — Darryl Pinckney

Astronomers, like burglars and jazz musicians, operate best at night. — Miles Kington

I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary. — Tom Waits

Armstrong was the key creator of the mature working language of jazz. Three decades after his death and more than three-quarters of a century since his influence first began to spread, not a single musician who has mastered that language fails to make daily use, knowingly or unknowingly, of something that was invented by Louis Armstrong. — Dan Morgenstern

Growing up, I'd already decided I wanted to be a beatnik. A Bohemian poet, I thought. Or a musician. Maybe an artist. I'd dress in black turtlenecks and smoke Gitanes. I'd listen to cool jazz in clubs, getting up to read devastating truths from my notebook, leaning against the microphone, cigarette dangling from my hand. — Charles De Lint

I'm not a jazz musician, because, I mean, firstly, I can't play anything. I'm not bad on the tamborine. I have a certain way with the triangle. But I'm not a jazz musician ... my band, they always joke, they always say that I'm a disposable, pop, jazz superstar. — Michael Buble

I'm a jazz musician by education and vocation, but I don't think jazz should [ dictate] what I want to do. — Dave Douglas

I'd have no trouble being the barbecue kingpin of America. I'd just add it to all the other things I am: jazz musician, carpenter, architect, engineer and revolutionary. — Bobby Seale

The first jazz musician was a trumpeter, Buddy Bolden, and the last will be a trumpeter, the archangel Gabriel. — Wynton Marsalis

Grace Kelly plays with intelligence, wit and feeling. She has a great amount of natural ability and the ability to adapt. That is the hallmark of a first-class jazz musician. — Wynton Marsalis

When I got this saxophone, it became a religion. There wasn't TV, there wasn't much money, and there was just a real dedication ... I never thought of it as an art. It was just work that I loved. Not just work, but work that I loved. I loved it so much, I would play it if nobody listened to it. Any jazz musician, if there's nobody around to listen, would play just for the sheer joy of improvising music. — Stan Getz

In order for a musician to grow, he's got to pay his dues. Some musicians ask me, 'well, what do you mean? You're saying I have to 'starve' and pay all these dues just to play jazz?' And my answer to them is, well, to some degree, yes! Because in order to play jazz you have to live it. Those notes mean something. They don't just come from your brain, they come from your heart and soul too. And in order to have that heart and soul you have to experience life. So I relate my music to my life and my life style. You can't separate the two. — Woody Shaw

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician. — Michael Parkinson

Some people think I'm a rock 'n' roll musician and some think I'm a jazz musician but, for me, there is no difference. — Georgie Fame

A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow. — Steve Lacy

I was always very leery of my piano playing. As a young kid, I wanted to be a jazz musician, but my taste was far greater than my ability. — Mike Stoller

You've got to do what you know before you know what you're doing."

Duke Madison, Jazz Musician — Andy Martello

To date, [Wynton] Marsalis has received a total of nine Grammy Awards; a Pulitzer Prize (the first ever awarded to a jazz musician) ... and twenty-nine honorary degrees, including Columbia, Brown, Princeton and Yale; the National Medal of Arts; and numerous awards from other countries. — Randy Sandke

As any jazz musician knows, it takes flexibility and adaptability for improvisation to create beauty. — Doc Childre