Swizz Beatz

Jazz musicians are the only workers who will put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.

I never set out to find a style of my own, it just happened.

Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.

I’ve been a jazz artist playing pop and R&B my entire career.

I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That’s when I was born.

A series of vibrations. What does it matter, the source of the catalyst?

Music is a verb.

Music doesn’t have to hop to be hip, as long as it swings it sings.

I’m always looking for ways to develop as a Jazz artist, to find different ways of using my voice.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

I didn’t need to worry about keys, chords, melody if I had that emotion that brought tears and laughter to people’s hearts.

Beiderbecke took out a silver cornet, put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying ‘yes.’

I don’t really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I’d like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

Dizzy used to tell me I’m playing too hard. He’d say to not give everything. Miles told me that too.