We’re here to have a ball.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.
If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet.
It takes an intelligent ear to listen to Jazz.
When it comes to music, don’t lie to yourself; just tell yourself the truth.
You can’t seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues – you can’t seperate it. Because that’s where it all started, and that’s where it all come from – that’s where I learned to keep rhythm – in church.
If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing.
When the music changes, so does the dance.
Just because I’m playing Jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.
I still love the whole history of Jazz. The old things sound better than ever.
Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.
Darlin… be-bop is the music of the future.
You blows who you is.
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.
The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.
To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.
People couldn’t give an F about how many cars you got any more. It’s about the way the music sounds, where you’re going, the experience you’re going to hanging out with your friends, the type clothes that you’re wearing – all of that’s art.
You don’t know what love is, until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues, until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose.
I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.
In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.
Always keep reaching.
There’s only one thing that everyone in this world has in common: whether you want to love somebody and you want to be loved in return.
