If you play jazz, then you play with your fingers. If you’re playing rock, you use a pick. There’s really no rhyme or reason to that other than that’s just the way it has been. – Kevin Eubanks
What basketball expresses is what jazz expresses. Certain cultural predispositions to make art. All African-American art has a substratum, or baseline, of improvisation and spontaneity. You find that in both basketball and jazz. – John Edgar Wideman
Whether I do jazz or R&B, there are always complaints. I would just listen to the complaints about what I do instead of celebrating what I do, and that I’m different and in my own lane. It took a while for me to just ignore the doubts. – Ledisi
I’m a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz. – Kurt Elling
The old jazz singers or old blues singers, you always just saw them kind of sitting down and singing. They weren’t worried as much about their voice sounding perfect. They would make the song kind of fit their voice. – Lucinda Williams
You know, Equal Interest played at the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival Awards and not one musician from that category was even thought of. Even thought of! The idea, that here’s this vital energy, and that element doesn’t even know it exists! – Joseph Jarman
I’ve been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I’ve been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit. – Joseph Jarman
Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary. – Lee Konitz
The way I evolved was playing straight-ahead jazz into playing more fusion-type stuff just because I was young enough to get into it. As I get older, I find myself coming back to where I kind of started. – John Abercrombie
I think everybody has to kind of decide what the word ‘jazz’ means to them, and that’s fine. – Kenny G
I don’t really get the same kinda romance that I would get from, like, jazz. And even to a lesser extent to rock ‘n roll. Rock ‘n roll has a romance to it – how can I put it? A very vulgar romance, but still a romance; whereas hip hop has more facade. – Lupe Fiasco
I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group. – Leonard Cohen
As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe. – Jim Coleman
I’m really getting to appreciate traditional jazz now – the New Orleans stuff – a lot more than I did before. – John Goodman
I grew up listening to John Coltrane and jazz, so they were subtle influences. I sometimes think about doing some kind of weird jazz record, but I don’t know… It’s on my list of things to do. I don’t want to have to then go promote it. – Kim Gordon
Jazz is not the format where I want to stay, but it really is a starting point for me. – Justin Guarini
If you play the very subtle jazz tunes with acoustic pianos, acoustic bass and it’s a dead standard, you are going to play very differently. It depends on the music. – Lee Ritenour
Yes, I have been studying piano since I was six. Classical, jazz, compositional, Broadway, everything. I just love it all. – Janel Parrish
