To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question! — Louis Armstrong
When you are studying jazz, the best thing to do is listen to records or listen to live music. It isn't as though you go to a teacher. You just listen as much as you can and absorb everything. — Carla Bley
Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance. — Francoise Sagan
Many fail to realize this great recording industry was built by so-called jazz artists. And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well. — Ahmad Jamal
Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life. — Lester Bowie
Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm. — Jelly Roll Morton
Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge. — Jelly Roll Morton
Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz. — Dave Van Ronk
Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.' — Wayne Shorter
Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now. — Pat Martino
There are four qualities essential to a great jazzman. they are taste, courage, individuality, and irreverence. — Stan Getz
Jazz will be the classical music of the future. — Dizzy Gillespie
Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. — Ornette Coleman
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 Records Quotes
Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend. — George Gershwin
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
Jazz washes away the dust of every day life. — Art Blakey
Jazz is freedom. You think about that. — Thelonious Monk
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around. — Miles Davis
Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions. — Johnny Griffin
Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden! — Toots Thielemans
It takes an intelligent ear to listen to Jazz. — Art Blakey
All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues. — Mose Allison
Jazz Records Image Quotes
I notice you're a nerd is like saying, 'hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful that vapid, that you believe that there are thing that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan.
Music is enough for a lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music. — Sergei Rachmaninoff
Technically, I'm not a guitar player, all I play is truth and emotion. — Jimi Hendrix
Jazz is not a what, it is a how.
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
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 is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. — Nina Simone
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
Jazz Quotes
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
Marijuana is taken by musicians. And I'm not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type. — Harry J. Anslinger
I don't believe that jazz will ever really die. It's a nice way to express yourself. — Chet Baker
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen. — Duke Ellington
Well, I'm too old to pimp, and too young to die, so I'm just gonna keep playin' — Clark Terry
When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up. — Thelonious Monk
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
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
Smooth Jazz Quotes
The whole rise of new adult contemporary music and smooth jazz was a nice surprise. — Kenny G
Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon. — Nat Wolff
I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch. — Count Basie
Whoever invented smooth jazz, man, I wanna kill 'em: You're turning an art form into a hooker. — Phil Woods
I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with. — Roy Ayers
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play. — Roy Ayers
Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, you take all the drama out of it. — David Sanborn
Well, I guess my unease with that is... I'm always a little uneasy with that phrase - smooth jazz, as opposed to what? — David Sanborn
I find that jazz loosens up the deep place of my mind, lets me find my own strange rhythms. Generally, I find the knottier the jazz, the better. Anything with singing is a distraction. Listening to classical music tends to have the unconscious effect of making my writing too smooth. — Paul Lynch
Dinner 'conversation' at the Cohens' meant my sister, mom, and I relaying in brutal detail the day's events in a state of amplified hysteria, while my father listened to his own smooth jazz station in his head. — Andy Cohen
Playing Jazz Quotes
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
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
Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play. — Charlie Parker
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 is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan. — Brian McKnight
A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life. — Jaco Pastorius
I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz. — Sonny Rollins
I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record I would make sure I'd buy one that did not have a guitar player on it. The sound was awful! — Tom Verlaine
I think all record companies should be run by a musician. Just as you wouldn't trust your health to an electrician. — Paul Bley
It seems all worlds of music - rock, blues, R&B, soul, hip-hop and others - are able to point to impromptu get-togethers as proud moments in their timelines, encounters that were recorded and created music of lasting impression. In the jazz tradition, there are a few, but none that has been revered for as long as Jazz at Massey Hall. — Ashley Kahn
The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record and they want to know which standards you're going to play. I'm saying let's break the formula. — Branford Marsalis
My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company. — Sarah Vaughan
There's so much around, you don't know what to listen to. All I've got at home is Bo Diddley, some Stones and Beatles stuff, and old jazz records. — Syd Barrett
Jazz isn't like pop, where you sell millions of records with a hit. Your spirit and soul aren't important in pop music. But jazz is like classical music. If people like you, they'll remember you and you'll last forever. — Freddie Hubbard
People think it is all about country music, and I know a lot of country music has come out of there, but like Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dillon was recorded there. A lot of great records; R&B records, jazz records. It's a lot of great players and great studios. — Elvis Costello
I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini. — Paul Desmond
I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist. — Donald Fagen
My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music. — Meshell Ndegeocello
So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It's over; it's on the record. — Miles Davis
I spent five years, at least, working with Miles. Together, we recorded ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer -- and I can tell you; each of these albums instantly became jazz classics. Hey, we had Wayne Shorter playing tenor sax, Ron [Carter] on bass, Tony Williams played drums. That was great band we had. — Herbie Hancock
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 don't know if I have enough guts to do a whole standard jazz record. — Gary Cherone
In 1994, I started touring again and I recorded two albums for Chesky Jazz. — Chuck Mangione
My father had played cornet, although I never saw him play it. I found his mouthpiece when I was a kid. I used to buzz it. And my mother played piano and sang in the church choir for different functions. So there was always music in the house, jazz, gospel, or whatever. Especially jazz records. — Johnny Griffin
For me personally - because I do it myself - the scoring of a picture is fun. I edit the picture and when I've finished I go into my room and I have many many records - jazz, classical and popular music. And I have this all at my disposal. I don't have to get a composer. — Woody Allen
I've always wanted to record a jazz record. I did one in the '70s with Barbara Carroll. It's been a journey. — Rita Coolidge
We all listened to a lot of recorded music, especially American jazz, modern jazz, and that's where our studies were and our inspiration came from. — Evan Parker
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 radio is not very friendly to pop singers who decide to make a jazz record. But a lot of people have been. A lot of the people I've talked to like the record. — Rita Coolidge
Trust me, the only real way to understand 'Chic' is in highfalutin terms. Our chord progressions were based on European modal melodies. I made those early 'Chic' records to impress my jazz friends. — Nile Rodgers
I started playing jazz by slowing down Tal Farlow records and analyzing his runs — Lenny Breau
I was a beginner again. I practiced hard and used to listen very closely to recordings of American jazz drummers such as Tony Williams and Kenny Clarke. — Jamie Muir
Columbia was a wonderful label for me. Wonderful. The records I made there garnered me an audience. I won a number of polls during the years that I was at Columbia. The Downbeat Jazz Poll. Leonard Feather, who was a huge critic back in the day, different polls that he had. The Playboy poll, a number of polls. So the music was great. — Aretha Franklin
To my ears, jazz sounds better in warm weather and after the sun has gone down. While I will listen to some of my favorite jazz records in cooler weather, it's the warmer nights that really make them come alive. Something about those sounds and the heat of the night really makes it happen for me. — Henry Rollins
Once you start collecting records you learn more and more about jazz and blues. — John Mayall
It never gets boring for me because there's so many different things to explore in the studio. The studio's become the sanctuary that people have come in and found new things out about themselves, as weird as that sounds. But it's true, I'm no different. I've made some crazy hard records, and I've made a jazz album. — Mac Miller
I was very lucky, because when I was at school, I had a great music teacher who would just take out these free-jazz records and play them for me. So it was in my early teens that I started to listen to jazz. — Alasdair MacLean
I've always explored things that people find a bit more freakish, like free jazz, and I'd gotten to a point where the live music I was making was really hectic and turning much more confrontational. So when I started working on Everything Ecstatic, that was very normal for me. I think it was a departure, but people read it as an escape from something, whereas every record I do is, I feel, a departure. — Kieran Hebden
I became a radio nut. I loved the afternoon serials, and I got into jazz through the radio. I had a subscription to Down Beat when I was 12. And I'd spend a lot of time in front of the minor, miming records. — George Carlin
I love that [ late-50s Verve recordings] - to me, that's the epitome of vocal jazz. It's my favorite style and era of it. — Jose James
I loved music. Music was a big thing and so I started collecting records. I had a large collection of jazz records and that was something else I used to listen to. At night, there was a - what the heck was his name? There was a famous - Jazzbo Collins, I used to listen to at night, and some other guys. — Robert Barry
So, you know, there are a lot of the biggest records of the year. There's great music in hip-hop and jazz and, you know, and folk music. — Stephen W. Thompson
I guess my biggest influence was actually my Grandfather. He used to play old records on vinyl, and would play old jazz and soul music like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and The Rat Pack and swing music. — Ella Henderson
The "Highway 61" album [of Bob Dylan] was produced by Bob Johnston if I'm not incorrect. And Bob Johnston was an entirely different producer than Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated. — Al Kooper
Recording in Nashville was absolutely essential to get the sound, the musicians, the atmosphere, the warmth... There are just cult places like that in the world, like Chicago for the blues or New York for jazz. Nothing sounds the same in Nashville as it does elsewhere. Nashville is the Mecca of country music and everyone knows it. — Roch Voisine
If I worried about that, I wouldn't have made a single record in my whole career. I think more and more, audiences appreciate something that is distinctive and different. Everyone always throws out this figure, 'Jazz is now down to three percent of the total record sales.' So does that mean it is not important? I think if we agree that human culture itself is important, then I think those three percent take on a greater significance. — Dave Douglas
I was sometimes doing DJ stuff and working in a record shop in Tokyo. That place was a very unique shop. It was the place lots of DJs came to get used and rare records. It had a lot of jazz, funk, Latin and seventies rock. — Miho Hatori
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of jazz records quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about jazz records to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of jazz records quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
