Quotes on Jazz

Jazz is what I play for a living.

To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

Never play anything the same way twice.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

That's the thing: There are so many art songs in jazz. It's a much more rich experience for the singer than people think.

It (jazz) isn't like it used to be. The guys aren't together. They're all separated. Individuals now. Bird was a symbol. It was a clique, a clique of people. Who all believed in one thing: gettin' high. And playin'.

The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.

I think jazz is a beautiful, democratic music. It encourages musicians with very strong, and many times, very different points of view to work together as a team while, at the same time, giving them the space to express their individuality. It's a very important art form and can be used as a model for different cultures to work together.

Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

Jazz, to me, is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul - the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.

If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.

I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It's not like I'm cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.

Jazz comes from our way of life, and because it's our national art form, it helps us to understand who we are.

Sam Phillips always encouraged me to do it my way, to use whatever other influences I wanted, but never to copy...if there hadn't been a Sam Phillips, I might still be working in a cotton field.

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.