Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" A lot of the commercial world wants to bank in on the cachet that jazz brings. "

Related Quotes:

" I remember seeing Tony Bennett on television. He was the only guy in the orchestra who was wearing a white tux, and I thought, 'That would be good. To be the only man on stage in a white jacket.' "

" Grammy nominations are certainly pleasant, but you can forget about them and lead a perfectly happy life - provided you have the approval of the musicians you work with. "

" The great jazz and jazz-influenced singers carry themselves with a certain panache and a certain elegance and, for lack of a better word, self-confidence. "

Self-Confidence

" In New York, the drummers rush for a reason - because there's so much energy crackling through everything in that city and so many collisions at a highly accelerated rate. "

" I've tried to learn as much as I can about the great jazz singers to understand what makes them important, vital artists, but there is always something more to learn. "

" Music is a physical expression that has a physical impact upon the listener. Sound travels in waves through the air. This is not abstract. This is scientific fact. And it makes physical contact with the eardrum... and with the heart... and with the rest of the body. "

" We all know that jazz demands a cultivation of the mind. "

" I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz. "

" Every record is a gate of a certain kind for me. "

" I've tried to educate myself in the world and what's beautiful and what has meaning and is lasting. Then I just follow my intuition and see how it fits. "

" At a certain point, the graduate school thing didn't work out, and that meant I was liberated. "

Graduate School

" I know how hard it's been for me to get my thing out there. "

" It's true that I'm not known as a crooner or balladeer. I'm known for a more crusading or quixotic temperament. "

" I didn't arrive on the scene until after Jaco Pastorius had passed, but 'Three Views of a Secret' is a long-time favourite of mine. "

" You learn as much as you can from the people that you work with. That's why you want to surround yourself with the heaviest people that you can possibly get to. "

Surround Yourself

" The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle. "

" There's a spiritual complement to any attempt at transposing a commitment to humanity through music or art. "

" You don't show respect to Frank Sinatra and his great example by trying to sound exactly like him. You show it by sounding exactly like you, and that's the way jazz has always progressed as an art form. "

" You want to be doing your best work whatever field of the arts you're in because your life's going to be over all too soon, and you have to make the most of it. "

" I want to be the jazz singer. "

" I've got enough miles under my belt to know that whatever you envision in your mind, even if it comes true, will only keep a shape in the most general way. "

" I was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about. "

" It's easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They're such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It's a drag, man. "

" A lot of people are put off by the idea of scat singing. Either that or it's something to be made fun of. "

" I don't want to take it easy. "

" It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect. "

" My strength is to communicate with an audience and to know what jazz singing is capable of. "

" I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close. "

" People just want to dig; they want to dance. They don't want to work all through the night, and neither do I. I like getting 'out there,' but communication should be occurring on more levels than heavy-laden philosophical. "

" Why limit yourself to one discipline or field of study? "