Ella’s [Fitzgerald] voice becomes the orchestra’s richest and most versatile sound. Arthur Fiedler
Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions. Johnny Griffin
The piano for them was a total orchestra. The left hand was the base, the drum. The right hand was the rest of the orchestra. And they could create all kinds of sounds and colors. Randy Weston, piano
His melodies was beautiful. His chords were unusual. His colours, his rhythmic sense. Randy Weston, re Thelonious Monk
Life is a lot like jazz ... It’s best when you improvise. George Gershwin
My people are American, my time is today ... Music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times. George Gershwin, cited Merle Armitage ‘Accent on America’ 1944
The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself ... Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel. George Gershwin, cited Isaac Goldberg ‘Tin Pan Alley’ 1930
Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music. George Gershwin, cited Henry Cowell ‘American Composers on American Music’ 1933
Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy’s playing blues like we play, he’s in high school. When he starts playing jazz it’s like going on to college, to a school of higher learning. B B King
One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz. Lou Reed
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
Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, ‘Oh, baby,’ if there’s a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool. Etta James
The outer space beings are my brothers. They sent me here. They already know my music. Sun Ra
4Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does. Tony Wilson
In a way, the history of jazz’s development is a small mirror of classical music’s development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form. Mike Figgis
Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that. Pat Metheny
When Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis’ tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. Pat Metheny, referring to Kenny G’s overdubbing of Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World
I have to admit that more and more lately, the whole idea of jazz as an idiom is one that I’ve completely rejected. I just don’t see it as an idiomatic thing any more. Pat Metheny
For me the main thing is spontaneity and taking chances. Dave Kikoski
If there’s any such thing as a perfect man, I think John Coltrane was one. Elvin Jones
We first met – jazz and I – at a dance hall dive at the Barbary Coast. It screeched and bellowed at me from a trick platform in the middle of a smoke-hazed beer-fumed room. And it hit me hard. Raucous? Yes. Crude? Undoubtedly. Musical? As sure as you live. Paul Whiteman
Humans are imperfect. That’s one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We’re on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life. Branford Marsalis
Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout. Melvin Maddocks
Jazz is rhythm and meaning. Henri Mattise
A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. Benny Green
Now a lone rain falling thru doors empty of room-Jazz. Cecil Taylor
Jazz represents a celebration of the individual. Ellis Marsalis
Women and rhythm section first. Jaco Pastorius
I’m all in favour of getting grants for musicians. Or any other good brand of scotch. Pepper Adams
His improvisations were attempts to disguise his love of melody. He clothed whatever he played with spindly runs, flatted notes, flatted chords, repeated single notes, yawning silences and zigzag rhythms. Sometimes he pounded the keyboard with his right elbow. His style protected him not only from his love of melody but from the love of the older pianists he grew out of – Duke Ellington and the stride pianists. All peered out from inside his solos, but he let them escape only as parody. Whitney Balliett, New Yorker jazz critic, re Thelonious Monk
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 don’t want to sound immodest, but what musicians like myself play is Phd music compared to the nursery-school sounds of a lot of rock-n-roll. They’ve got to grow out of it ... You can only maintain that stance so long – unless, in musical terms, you’re retarded. Teddy Wilson
Krupa’s drums went through us like a triple bourbon. Eddie Condon
She [Sarah Vaughan] had a tone and pitch and a musicianship that was always different from anybody else’s. Very distinctive. Joe Williams, singer
London’s rhythm enthusiasts of all ages put on their zute suits and go to town. To be precise Oxford Street ... The music of Humphrey Lyttelton. Early black and white film, cited Night on Film: An A-Z of the Dark, BBC 2011
This programme to promote modern rhythms comes to you from the Savoy Ballroom. Known as the Hall of Happy Feet located in uptown New York City. Besides, the music of Count Basie, the singing of Billie Holiday and James Rushing is heard here nightly. Radio broadcast
It don’t mean a thing
If it ain’t got that swing. Irving Mills, It Don’t Mean a Thing, 1932 song
This is really composition on the spot. And it is a collective thing. The most beautiful example of men working together to be seen in public today. Otis Ferguson, The New Republic
Bop? It’s An Escape. Robert C Ruark, article
What is Be-Bop? Here is the ‘low-down’ by Britain’s foremost disciple of the ‘New Music’ – Seymour Wyse, who has studied the movement since its birth in the States 5 years ago. The Melody Maker and Rhythm
When we talk about Swing, the Swing bands, it’s a little dicey as to whether we’re going to call this jazz or not. James Lincoln Collier, biographer
As an antidote to the Depression I think swing music did as much as MGM musicals to help America through. Gerald Early, writer
It was kind of a piercing kind of a sound. It was piercing and mellow at the same time. And I think that’s what really struck me about just the loneliness of the human condition. And for some reason I rather thought that black people actually captured that rather very well in music was this kind of loneliness in the human condition, that no matter how much you yearn for communion, yearn for community, in the end there is this loneliness and there’s no way you can escape it. Gerald Early
Lindy Hopping Strictly Prohibited By Order of the Management. Sign in Bebop club