Quotes on Classical Music

I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.

Classical music is a special taste like Greek language or pre-Columbian archeology, not a common culture of reciprocal communication and psychological shorthand.

Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions. I apprehended the structure of certain pieces of jazz and classical music in a new manner under the influence of marijuana, and these apprehensions have remained valid in years of normal consciousness.

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.

I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.

It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... we contributed Louis Armstrong

I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth.