Jazz Quotes

Life is a lot like jazz - it's best when you improvise. (George Gershwin)
By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with. View quote
Duke Ellington
I'm really getting to appreciate traditional jazz now - the New Orleans stuff - a lot more than I did before. View quote
John Goodman
Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught. View quote
Paul Desmond
Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz. View quote
Thelonious Monk
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. View quote
George Gershwin
When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America. View quote
George Gershwin
The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. View quote
Louis Armstrong
If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. View quote
Louis Armstrong
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. View quote
Ornette Coleman
It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands. (George Santayana)
Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing. View quote
Kathy Acker
Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear. View quote
Ralph Ellison
Jazz, of course, is our heritage. Jazz is a culture, it's not a fad. It's up to us to see to it that it stays alive. View quote
Marla Gibbs
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music. View quote
Nina Simone
The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness. View quote
Herbie Hancock
Jazz is about being in the moment. View quote
Herbie Hancock
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. View quote
Charlie Trotter
Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time. View quote
Bobby McFerrin
Jazz, rock and roll, movies and comics are the culture of America. View quote
Bill Griffith
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)
Not with the Rochester Philharmonic, but I formed my own orchestra, made up of musicians from the Eastman School, where I'm on the faculty now, direct the Jazz Ensemble and teach improvisation classes. View quote
Chuck Mangione
In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead. View quote
David Amram
There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians. View quote
Dave Van Ronk
I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture. View quote
Etta James