Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.
I always thought that as much as I love 'White Jazz,' it became almost unfilmable at some point, because there are so many strands, so much, and it became so psychotic... that's what made it such a great book, but those things would not carry over into the filmic realm, I thought, with ease.
As a matter of fact, we put it down because we wanted to be jazz pickers.
Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.
We're the first technology-creating species. We use technology to extend our reach. We didn't stay in the caves, and we haven't stayed on the planet. To play jazz with our genomes and the universe might ultimately be what we're all about.
It's sort of what jazz would be if it stopped being snobby and what rock would be if it stopped being stupid.
There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.
I'm a freak, everything has to be totally flat when I play. Ed Will, my jazz teacher, set up everything completely flat, and then you'd tilt your snare drum away from you, so I do that too. So my snare tilts away from me.
I'm basically a cocktail jazz kind of pianist. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good keyboard player. People think I think I'm good. I think I'm a very poor piano player.
I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.
I go for a nice walk in my neighborhood and search for vinyl, old jazz, classics. Then I go home and listen to them.
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.
I wanted to play some more grown-up music - jazz.
I like to say, jazz music is kind of like my musical equivalent of comfort food. You know, it's always where I go back to when I just want to feel sort of grounded.
Well, jazz is to me, a complete lifestyle. It's bigger than a word. It's a much bigger force than just something that you can say. It's something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.
I guess I learnt to appreciate old Hindi-movie music from my dad and somewhere down the line picked up jazz as well.
I was serious about ballet for a long time, but my mom got me into tap and jazz and modern and hip-hop, and I was one of those over-lessoned children.
Jazz music is an intensified feeling of nonchalance.
And more than anything, I like the improvisation of jazz. That's the same thing with DJ-ing. There's so much improvisation you can do with cuttin' and scratchin' that's reminiscent of jazz music, because it's all about how you feel. You're capturing a vibe and just going with it.
In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.
You know, it's funny... when you're making money, people don't think you're playing jazz. Now when you're not making money, people think that you're a good jazz musician.
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.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a house where we listened to all kinds of music. We listened to Haitian, hip hop, soul, classical jazz, gospel and Cuban music, to name a few. When you have access to that as a child, it just opens up your world.
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.
I am comfortable with anything I sing: jazz, gospel, classical. It doesn't matter. I can do it all.
The history of all big jazz bands shows was, first they played for dancing, and then they played for singing.
New Age is a very small box. It was a term that was brought in by the music industry to classify music that is neither jazz, classical, pop or rock. They didn't know what to call it or what to do with it. So they threw it all together under this one name.
Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.
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!
Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.
Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.
We were the first small American jazz group since Sidney Bechet in 1927 to play for the public in Moscow and Leningrad.
I came along in the '60s having absorbed as much as I could up until then and added my own tastes and search into the equation. I guess that's how I see 'Now He Sings, Now He Sobs' in relation to the development of jazz in general.
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.
I listen to country music. I listen to jazz. I listen to R&B. I listen to Jimi Hendrix a lot.
I'm a classically trained jazz pianist - I've been playing since I was 3 years old.
