Charlie Parker lifted jazz music off the dance floor and into the stratosphere!
I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.
The jazz band's chief stimulus, of course, was the rise of the negro 'blues' and their exploitation by the negro song-writer, W. C. Handy.
The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.
Jazz music celebrates life! Human life; the range of it, the absurdity of it, the ignorance of it, the greatness of it, the intelligence of it, the sexuality of it, the profundity of it. And it deals with it. In all of its. . . It deals with it!
I've always loved jazz.
Day in, day out. That same old voodoo follows me about.
I've listened to Jazz since I was born and always knew I'd be a Jazz singer!
Jazz can be a blank canvas full of possibilities.
It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.
Charlie Parker was the greatest individual musician that ever lived. Every instrument in the band tried to copy Charlie Parker, and in the history of jazz there had never been one man who influenced all the instruments.
Ever since I was a kid, I've been into clothes, but not really labels- that's kind of only been in the last year or so. It's something I've always cared about. I used to just constantly thrift and make stuff and cut stuff up and borrow my dad's stuff and borrow my little brother's stuff and all that jazz. . . . It's just, if something is cool, then it's cool.
Selflessness is like waiting in a hospital In a badly-fitting suit on a cold wet morning. Selfishness is like listening to good jazz With drinks for further orders and a huge fire.
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.
[Jazz singing] is like pornography. You can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it.
Jazz to me is the spirit of freedom. I mean real freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. Freedom to pour out your guts.
Astronomers, like burglars and jazz musicians, operate best at night.
Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.
I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.
No one is original. Everyone is derivative.