140 Jazz And Life Quotes

Following is our list of jazz and life quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about jazz age.

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Famous Jazz And Life Quotes

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. — Nina Simone

Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life. — Lester Bowie

Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend. — George Gershwin

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life. — Sonny Rollins

To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question! — Louis Armstrong

Jazz is about being in the moment. — Herbie Hancock

Jazz washes away the dust of every day life. — Art Blakey

Jazz to me is a living music. It's a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people. — Dexter Gordon

Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions. — Johnny Griffin

Jazz, like leadership, combines the unpredictability of the future with the gifts of individuals. — Max De Pree

Jazz is freedom. You think about that. - Thelonious Monk

Jazz is freedom. You think about that. — Thelonious Monk

Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now. — Pat Martino

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance. - Francoise Sagan

Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance. — Francoise Sagan

Jazz is a beautiful word. I love it. — Dexter Gordon

Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently. — Thelonious Monk

Short Jazz And Life Quotes

  • Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden! — Toots Thielemans
  • Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz. — Sonny Rollins
  • The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness. — Herbie Hancock
  • For me, music and life are all about style. — Miles Davis
  • I don't believe that jazz will ever really die. It's a nice way to express yourself. — Chet Baker
  • Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm. — Jelly Roll Morton
  • Jazz will be the classical music of the future. — Dizzy Gillespie
  • What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on. — Gerry Mulligan
  • Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around. — Miles Davis
  • Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world. — Ahmad Alaadeen

Jazz And Life Image Quotes

Jazz and life quote For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're
For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and, if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over.

Jazz And Life Quotes

Music is enough for a lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music. - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Music is enough for a lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music. — Sergei Rachmaninoff

Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him. — Louis Armstrong

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it. — Louis Armstrong

Jazz and life quote Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.
Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source. — John Coltrane

Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play. — Charlie Parker

The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Imamu Amiri Baraka Jones

Jazz and life quote There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your ow
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.

The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons. — Amiri Baraka

Hipness is not a state of mind, It's a fact of life! — Cannonball Adderley

The whole of life itself expresses the blues. That's why I always say the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding. The blues can be about anything pertaining to the facts of life. The blues call on God as much as a spiritual song do. — Willie Dixon

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat. — Carmen McRae

Jazz Age Quotes

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age. — Paul Whiteman

Up to the age of 14 I had not heard a note of anything before 1750, never heard a note of Bach, never heard anything after Wagner, and never heard any real jazz. — Steve Reich

Jazz and life quote Some days I wish I could go back in life. Not to change anything, but to feel a few things twice.
Some days I wish I could go back in life. Not to change anything, but to feel a few things twice.

Benny Goodman's band was integrated before baseball. Even before it was physically integrated, music was integrated. Everyone listened to Armstrong and Ellington. The 20s was called the Jazz Age. It's part of being American. — Wynton Marsalis

I felt quite frankly having been raised during the depression and looking back at the roaring twenties, the jazz age, which was a very magic timer in my mind because it was something that I had missed. — Hugh Hefner

Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children's party taken over by the elders. — Unknown

Jazz and life quote Getting knocked down in life is a given. Getting up and moving forward is a choice.
Getting knocked down in life is a given. Getting up and moving forward is a choice.

There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time. — Sonny Rollins

If the average jazz artist uses his head and at the outset of his career realizes he won't play as well at fifty as he does at twenty-five, he won't be in a line-up outside the Salvation Army when he's fifty. — Oscar Peterson

At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm primarily thought of as a rocker, and certainly 'Frankenstein' had a very dramatic power rock image. It was almost a precursor of heavy metal and fusion. But I also love jazz and classical and if there's one common thread that runs through all my music, it is blues. — Edgar Winter

Music And Life Quotes

Judge not, before you judge yourself. Judge not, if you're not ready for judgment. The Road of life is rocky and you may stumble too, so while you talk about me, someone else is judging you. — Bob Marley

We need to have music that contributes to the well-being of the spirit. Music that cradles people's lives and makes things a little easier. That's what I try to do, and what I want to do. You don't want to close the door on hope. — Merle Haggard

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Improve the World Through Music. — Plato

Jazz and life quote The secret to living well and longer is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measur
The secret to living well and longer is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measure.

Live for yourself and you will live in vain; Live for others, and you will live again. — Bob Marley

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life. — Bob Marley

Life and love go on, let the music play. - Johnny Cash

Life and love go on, let the music play. — Johnny Cash

Jazz and life quote Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip
Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip top if you must, but take the step.

You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it. — Jerry Garcia

Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence. — Og Mandino

But life is just a party, and parties weren't meant to last. — Prince

I wish you music to help with the burdens of life ,and to help you release your happiness to others. — Ludwig van Beethoven

Jazz And Blues Quotes

My baby lives in shades of blue, blue eyes and jazz and attitude. - Lana Del Rey

My baby lives in shades of blue, blue eyes and jazz and attitude. — Lana Del Rey

The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues. — Luther Allison

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. — Ornette Coleman

Jazz and life quote Don't wait for everything to be perfect before you decide to enjoy your life.
Don't wait for everything to be perfect before you decide to enjoy your life.

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues. — Mose Allison

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. — Etta James

My father's rich, my momma's good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I've never suffered and don't intend to suffer. — Miles Davis

Jazz and life quote Don't compare your life to others. There's no comparison between the sun and the moon. They shine wh
Don't compare your life to others. There's no comparison between the sun and the moon. They shine when it's their time.

When I die, I want them to play The Black and Crazy Blues, I want to be cremated, put in a bag of pot and I want beautiful people to smoke me and hope they got something out of it. — Rahsaan Roland Kirk

I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I'm still and quiet inside, I'll begin. It's very personal; it has to be. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece. — Bobby McFerrin

It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception. — Albert Einstein

As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music. — Edgar Winter

Playing Jazz Quotes

To play without passion is inexcusable! — Ludwig van Beethoven

Technically, I'm not a guitar player, all I play is truth and emotion. — Jimi Hendrix

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years. — Thelonious Monk

Jazz and life quote Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go
Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go through life's journey, remember that the black keys also makes music.

Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one. — Miles Davis

My brother had a big band in high school; after that we continued to play together, eventually forming a group called the Jazz Brothers, that recorded for Riverside Records. — Chuck Mangione

Jazz and life quote Failure are part of life. If you don't fail, you don't learn. If you don't learn you'll never change
Failure are part of life. If you don't fail, you don't learn. If you don't learn you'll never change.

I like jazz, but I could never play it. You just sit there with a guitar the size of a Chevy on your chest, wearing a stupid hat, playing the same solo for an hour. — Dave Mustaine

The music I like to play is Rock 'N Roll. I like to rock like a wild animal. I like to rock it well enough to whip a yak's ass. I love to rock it good on a horse's ass. I like to rock it real hard. I love to rock it all the way to Russia. I like to kick out the Jazz and kick it out all the way. — Wesley Willis

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going. - Wes Montgomery

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going. — Wes Montgomery

It's the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It's only honesty makes it beautiful. — Elvin Jones

Jazz Music Quotes

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls. — John Coltrane

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being. — John Coltrane

Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once. — John Coltrane

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. — Duke Ellington

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others. — Harry J. Anslinger

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen. — Duke Ellington

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat. — Wes Montgomery

Jazz is the favorite music [of America]. It is a type of music invented by [American] Blacks to please their primitive tendencies and desire for noise. — Sayyid Qutb

Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say. — Mahalia Jackson

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet. — Lee Konitz

Music Is Life Quotes

Without music, life is a journey through a desert. - Pat Conroy

Without music, life is a journey through a desert. — Pat Conroy

Life would be flat without music. It is the background to all I do. It speaks to the heart in its own special way like nothing else. — Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is a weapon of the future / music is the weapon of the progressives / music is the weapon of the givers of life — Fela Kuti

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents. — Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. — Ludwig van Beethoven

The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, 'Well done, thy good and faithful servant,' is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal! — Keith Green

Music is my life and my life is music. Anyone who does not understand this is not worthy of God. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Life isn’t a music player where you choose whats being played, it is a radio where you have to enjoy whats being played. — Zayn Malik

Rock and roll is about having a good time, so no matter where you are right now blast some music and forget about lifes problems. — Andy Biersack

With music, one's whole future life is brightened. This is such a treasure in life that it helps us over many troubles and difficulties. Music is nourishment, a comforting elixir. Music multiplies all that is beautiful and of value in life. — Zoltan Kodaly

People Writing About Jazz And Life

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Read quotes by Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins
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Read quotes by Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

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Read quotes by Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon
quotes on love, life and leadership

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Read quotes by Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk
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Read quotes by Miles Davis

Miles Davis
quotes on silence, jazz and life

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Read quotes by Nina Simone

Nina Simone
quotes on love, freedom and art

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More Jazz And Life Quotes

Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe. . . Thats what I would like to do. I think thats one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musicians is through his music. — John Coltrane

Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician. — John Coltrane

My life is music, and in some vague, mysterious and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often - in fact, mostly - at the expense of everything else in my life. — Stan Getz

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. — Duke Ellington

You can not ignore his current life. Bowie has become a family man and enjoys to see his children grow up close to him. But after six years he feels the urge to get in the studio with musicans he likes. He closely follows bands like Arcade Fire in recent months. But he is inspired by ancient Chinese folk and jazz these days as well. — Gail Ann Dorsey

The idea is more important than the style you're playing in. — Ornette Coleman

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

The idea is more important than the object. — Damien Hirst

If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good! — Duke Ellington

Let your life be your music and let your music be your life. — Kevin Eubanks

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. — Charles Mingus

When people ask me how is it I was a musician, I facetiously say that I'm a firm believer in reincarnation and in a previous life I was Johann Sebastian Bach's guide dog. — George Shearing

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life. — Amy Tan

Make no mistake, this music is for everyone. Jazz is not an exclusive, elite club. Go ahead, listen to your Snoop Doggy Dog, Pearl Jam, Garth Brooks, but add a little Ellington, Basie and Coltrane to your life as well. — Christian McBride

...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing. — Pat Metheny

Making the simple complicated is commonplace. — Charles Mingus

From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me. — Athol Fugard

Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is no truer truth obtainable by Man than comes of music — Robert Browning

They tell me Wagner's music is better than it sounds. — Edgar Wilson Nye

The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization. — John F. Kennedy

Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing. — Sonny Rollins

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life. — Stan Getz

Around middle school I studied jazz guitar and ended up playing in a jazz band for a bit. But, after high school, I haven't even touched a guitar. — Mike Tucker

You know that this vignette and that vignette belong side by side, you know that a certain turn of phrase you've been saving will probably work best within a given section of the narrative. As in a jazz performance, writing lives or dies by what's produced in that moment. But that moment is attended by long preparation. — Teju Cole

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

My faith is the grand drama of my life. I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none. — Olivier Messiaen

Music is a huge part of my life, I enjoy every genre of music from jazz to country, and I even get down with a bit of hip hop. — Nicole Richie

I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life. — Kenneth Rexroth

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