Крылатые фразы о джазе и музыке

[NbP]

"I am a servant of the music...if I get caught up in ego, I'll lose everything...it'll burn and that's a guarantee...""
—Eric Clapton






The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."
—Aaron Copland


A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

—Abraham Maslow


When the music changes, so does the dance.

—African proverb


A master drummer must have seven eyes.

—African proverb


The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music.

—Agnes de Mille


Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world.

—Ahmad Alaadeen


New Orleans is the only place I know of where you ask a little kid what he wants to be and instead of saying "I want to be a policeman," or "I want to be a fireman," he says, I want to be a musician".

—Alan Jaffe


It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception. (When asked about the theory of relativity)

—Albert Einstein


He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.

—Albert Einstein


After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible,is music.

—Aldous Huxley


A real leader faces the music, even if he doesn't like the tune.

—Anon


Hawk, I heard that record you made with Sonny Rollins! Don't ever do it again!

—anonymous fan to Coleman Hawkins


Jazz washes away the dust of every day life.

—Art Blakey


Jazz is... One of life's greatest gifts: fun found within surprise.

—Author Unknown


Jazz is... An open-ended music designed for open minds.

—Author Unknown


If it's too loud, you're too old!

—Barrythemod


ahhh cartoons America's only native art form. I don't count jazz because it sucks.

—Bart Simpson


If Charlie Parker were alive today, somebody would try to cut a disco single with and try and get him to sell three million.

—Ben Sidran


Art is self expression. If you are expressing someone else's personality, that is not art.

—Bennie Wallace


Anyone can learn what Louis Armstrong knows about music in a few weeks. Nobody could learn to play like him in a thousand years.

—Benny Green


Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

—Berthold Auerbach


...it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

—Bill Evans


Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

—Bill Evans


Talent is cheap, and many talents treat themselves cheaply.

—Bill Evans


Jazz is a mental attitude rather than a style. It uses a certain process of the mind expressed spontaneously through some musical instrument. I'm concerned with retaining that process.

—Bill Evans


"Music, for me, has always been a place where anything is possible--a refuge, a magical world where anyone can go, where all kinds of people can come together, and anything can happen. We are limited only by our imaginations.

—Bill Frisell


I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know.

—Billie Holliday


There is jazz in our music but there is a funk element too. People have labeled us organic acid jazz but we aren't too keen on that. I prefer Sanford and Sun Ra!

—Billy Martin, drums / percussion (MMW)


The thing that is making jazz healthy today is that people are coming out of other backgrounds - from rock, folk, from ethnic music. It's changing the music, and for the better.

—Billy Taylor


One thing I like about jazz, kid, is that I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?

—Bix Beiderbecke


This is positively not an album to play while you do a doctorate thesis on "Bergson, Webern and Charles the Vicious, Paradox or Ambiguity?"

—Bob Brookmeyer


The whole thing of being in music is not to control it but to be swept away by it. If you're swept away by it you can't wait to do it again and the same magical moments always come.

—Bobby Hutcherson


My own feelings about the direction in which jazz should go are that there should be much less stress on technical exhibitionism and much more on emotional content, on what might be termed humanity in music and the freedom to say all that you want.

—Booker Little


Not to deny that it is a thinking people's music, but when I listen to music if I ever catch myself thinking, I'm in trouble--I know something is wrong.

—Brian Blade


Hipness is not a state of mind, It's a fact of life!

—Cannonball Adderley


What's interesting about a person without problems?

—Carla Bley


Surrender your whole being to a note, and gravity disappears...with one chord, John Lee Hooker could tell a story as deep as the ocean.

—Carlos Santana


Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.

—Carmen McRae


Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

—Cecil Taylor


Doesn't that fool know I recorded that song because I like it?

—Cecil Taylor


Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'

—Charles Mingus


Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

—Charles Mingus


In the midst of creating, a person is raised to another level of consciousness that doesn't have that much to do with everyday thinking. It's as if you could imagine life before there were words.

—Charlie Haden


...don't think of yourself as a jazz musician. Think of yourself as a human being who plays music.

—Charlie Haden


I am a devout musician.

—Charlie Parker


Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.

—Charlie Parker


You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

—Charlie Parker


If you don't live it, It won't come out of your horn.

—Charlie Parker


I'm very glad to have met you. I like your playing very much.

—Charlie Parker to Jean-Paul Sartre


Only play what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything.

—Chick Corea


Jazz is like a great void, it waits patiently until a brave musician takes control of space and time.

—Chris Griffin


Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school.

—Clark Terry


Imitate, assimilate, and innovate.

—Clark Terry


[Music]...if you don't make mistakes you aren't really trying.

—Coleman Hawkins


Respect your own creativity and respect the creativity and creative space of other people.

—Danny Barker


Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic-take it or leave it.

—Dave Brubeck


It's always interesting to me that any time anyone hears something new they immediately have to categorize it or they don't feel comfortable. It's also one way not to experience something.

—Dave Friedman


We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.

—Decca in response to the Beatles, 1962


I hope we left you with something to put under your pillows.

—Dexter Gordon


Men have died for this music. You can't get more serious than that.

—Dizzy Gillespie


It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

—Dizzy Gillespie


When people believe in boundaries, they become part of them.

—Don Cherry


The day I met Ornette [Coleman], it was about 90 degrees and he had on an overcoat. I was scared of him.

—Don Cherry


Every note Roy (Eldridge) played had meaning and life...his feelings pushed the valves down, not his fingers.

—Don Ferrara


All the music you've ever heard in your life is somewhere in your head. I don't reject that, I use it.

—Don Pullen


Music is what we need when language fails us, but we cannot remain silent.

—Dr. Cornel West


Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It's not an occupation or profession, it's a compulsion.

—Duke Ellington


Roaming through the jungle of "Ohs" and "Ahs" searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.

—Duke Ellington


Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

—Duke Ellington


It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line

—Duke Ellington


Retire to what?

—Duke Ellington


It's like an act of murder-you play with intent to commit something.

—Duke Ellington


You may have holes in your shoes, but don't let the people out front know it. Shine the tops.

—Earl Hines


Musicians should never forget that we're blessed. We have a special gift that people can enjoy through us. We've had the good fortune to receive this and pass it along to others.

—Ed Thigpen


As it enters the ear, does it come in like broken glass, or does it come in like honey?

—Eddie Condon


They flat their fifths, we drink ours.

—Eddie Condon


Finally Beiderbecke came out with a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying 'yes'.

—Eddie Condon on Bix Beiderbecke


That within you that draws breath is where the music is.

—Elena Gillespie


It isn't where you came from, it's where you're going that counts.

—Ella Fitzgerald


I feel very, very gratified when people are complimentary to what I have done or appreciated it with sincerity... It makes me feel that maybe I did do something that was proper and that was right.

—Elvin Jones


Jazz is a feeling, more than anything else. It isn't music, it's language...

—Enos Payne


It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit-enable them to see visions and dream dreams.

—Eric Anderson


I am a servant of the music...if I get caught up in ego, I'll lose everything...it'll burn and that's a guarantee..."

—Eric Clapton


...I think people overemphasize the importance of gear in their search for tone. Your sound comes from how you pick and dampen the strings and from your attack as much as anything...

—Eric Johnson


If I'd known I was going to live to be a hundred I'd have taken much better care of myself.

—Eubie Blake


Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music, music is the BEST.

—Frank Zappa


Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny.

—Frank Zappa


Without music, life would be a mistake.

—Friedrich Nietzsche


Music is my religion. Music is the only thing that has never failed me. People let you down, music won't.

—Gary Bartz


Musicians in the fifties were the very epitome of everything cool. Just the presence of Miles Davis and John Coltrane lowered the earth's average temperature by 2.4 degrees...

—Genius Guide to Jazz, April 2001


As the Avant Garde movement tore down every wall of the old establishment, only one rule that had stood from the very inception of jazz remained: no accordions.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, May 2001


Many jazz aficionados felt that Jazz completely overlooked or deliberately disregarded the contributions of non-human musicians. It is well-known among jazz scholars that pioneering tenor saxophonist Frankie Traumbauer was, in fact, a very large raccoon.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, June 2001


Davis understood that the space between the notes was sometimes just as important as the notes themselves. But he also understood that too much space between the notes, and people would think that the concert was over and go home...

—Genius Guide to Jazz, July 2001


Using arpeggios of the underlying chords in his solos, not merely confining himself to the notes in and around the melodic theme, Parker seriously increased the syllable count of the paragraphs describing his playing.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, August 2001


The history of the piano goes back almost to the beginning of recorded history (recorded on the Decca Label, reissued by Rhino).

—Genius Guide to Jazz, September 2001


By the Be-bop era, jazz drumming had become as technically demanding as trying to undo a four-hook bra strap while driving a stick-shift.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, November 2001


For his contributions to jazz, Kenny G should be: (D) Smeared with bacon grease, placed in a cage with three underfed Kodiak grizzly bears, and whatever happens, happens.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, January 2004


Blakey continued as an ambassador, defender and professor right up until just shortly after his death at age 71 on October 16, 1990 (he had a gig already scheduled for the 18th, and Art was nothing if not dependable).

—Genius Guide to Jazz, For Art's Sake


An early influence was "Wild Bill" Davis, perhaps the best-known organist of his time, who was so mean he once shot a man for snoring. Or am I thinking of Marian McPartland?

—Genius Guide to Jazz, Pulling Out All the Stops


Young Ray (Charles) won the right to pursue the piano in the landmark Supreme Court decision Robinson v. Some Dumbass Crackers (1939)

—Genius Guide to Jazz, What I Say


...the Delta style would become in itself one of the most influential trends in American music since an unknown woman threw her panties on the stage during a performance by Enrico Caruso.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, January 2004


Wynton at last came into his own as jazz's foremost figure; equal parts cheerleader, oral historian, artist, educator, and vodka with a dash of Angostura bitters, Worcestershire sauce, and a pearl onion.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, September 2003


He envisioned a chain of AAJ-themed all-you-can-eat catfish buffets, and an invincible zombie army that would hunt down and eat anyone with a top forty single until jazz is restored to its rightful place in American culture...

—Genius Guide to Jazz, December 2003


His first attempt to create an authoritative site is hampered by his medium, the Etch-a-sketch, which suffered from several inherent drawbacks.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, December 2003


...jazz fans are on average more affluent than the run-of-the-mill mullet-impaired AC/DC fans who control vital sections of our janitorial and 30-minute oil change industries.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, December 2001


The Jazz Diet will make you thinner, taller, smarter, richer, happier, hipper, leaner, meaner, keener, more attractive to members of every sex, and able to do those newspaper cryptoquote puzzles in one go.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, February 2005


All About Jazz is to jazz on the Internet what Miles Davis was to moody bastards with trumpets.

—Genius Guide to Jazz, November 2005


Music is the vernacular of the human soul.

—Geoffrey Latham


The technical history of modern harmony is a history of growth of toleration by the human ear of chords that at first sounded discordant and senseless to the main body of contemporary professional musicians.

—George Bernard Shaw


Regarding jam sessions: Jazz musicians are the only workers I can think of who are willing to put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.

—George Carlin


Boxing is like jazz, the better it is, the less people appreciate it.

—George Foreman


True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

—George Gershwin


Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise...

—George Gershwin


The history of a people are found in its songs.

—George Jellinek


If America has a future, Jazz has a future. The two are inseparable.

—George Russell


I don't just write music to esthetically satisfy somebody. The reason I write music is that I feel it's a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence.

—George Russell


When people ask me how is it I was a musician, I facetiously say that I'm a firm believer in reincarnation and in a previous life I was Johann Sebastian Bach's guide dog.

—George Shearing


I think there are only three things that America will be known for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music and baseball. They're the three most beautifully designed things this culture has ever produced.

—Gerald Early, Scholar


Life on the road is murder. It's as though life begins and ends when you have your horn in your mouth.

—Gerry Mullligan


I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality.

—H.A. Overstreet


Where words fail, music speaks.

—Hans Christian Anderson


Art leaves something to the listener; that's what separates art from craft.

—Henry Threadgill


Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.

—Henry Van Dyke


Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

—Herbie Hancock


Traveling with a big band is like being an inmate in a traveling zoo.

—Hoagy Charmichael


We all have to open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to try and arrive at something new and different.

—Horace Silver


Music is the great arbiter of the world, the key to central harmony, and a necessary requirement of human emotion.

—Hsun Tzu


I'm not here to raise hippie consciousness, I'm here to wet some panties.

—Jaco Pastorius


At heart I've always been a jazz man.

—James Brown


I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it.

—James Taylor


Technically, I'm not a guitar player, all I play is truth and emotion.

—Jimi Hendrix


Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens.

—Jimi Hendrix


Music is my religion.

—Jimi Hendrix


I want to play music that draws a picture of the world and its space.

—Jimi Hendrix


Anytime a person can play the blues, he has a soul and he has a 'lift' to play anything else he wants to play. It's sort of like the foundation to a building.

—Jimmy Rushing


The hardest thing for a musician to learn is how to play WITH people. That's what made the Basie rhythm section.

—Jo Jones


If you're going to make a mistake, make it loud so everybody else sounds wrong.

—Joe Venuti


You can't rehearse a blues, darlin'.

—Joe Williams


It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

—Johann Sebastian Bach


I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.

—John Coltrane


Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

—John Coltrane


I'm into scales right now.

—John Coltrane


The life of the arts is far from an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose-and is a test of the quality of a nations' civilization.

—John F. Kennedy


A little bit if listening with a passable ear will get an awful lot of messages anywhere.

—John Hendricks


The reward for playing jazz is playing jazz.

—John Lewis


Music is born out of the inner sounds within a soul; all the music that was ever heard came from the inner silence in every musician.

—John McLaughlin


Silence also swings.

—John Mehegan


Sam Phillips always encouraged me to do it my way, to use whatever other influences I wanted, but never to copy...if there hadn't been a Sam Phillips, I might still be working in a cotton field.

—Johnny Cash


Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.

—Johnny Griffin


Jazz is an art form that depends on its antecedents, there must be respect for the people that have gone before.

—Jon Hendricks


Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.

—Josephine Baker


If everyone liked what I did, I probably wouldn't be playing anything of depth.

—Joshua Redman


I think music as we know it, is autobiographical.

—Julius Hemphill


Music isn't just learning notes and playing them, you learn notes to play to the music of your soul.

—Katie Greenwood


Music isn't just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

—Katie Greenwood


Your skill is proportionate to your interest.

—Kenn Ash


Let your life be your music and let your music be your life.

—Kevin Eubanks


The worst crime is faking it.

—Kurt Cobain


[Jazz singing] is like pornography. You can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it.

—Kurt Elling


There are no natural barriers. It's all music. It's either hip or it ain't.

—Lee Morgan


The hippest thing you can do is not play at all. Just listen.

—Lennie Tristano


Music is the shorthand of emotion.

—Leo Tolstoy


Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.

—Leo Tolstoy


As a guitarist Charlie[Parker] was simply the best around...he had a way of getting on one note and driving it right into the ground.

—Les Paul


Jazz is neither specific repertoire, nor academic exercise... but a way of life.

—Lester Bowie


We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

—Louis Armstrong


Man, if you have to ask what it (jazz) is, you'll never know.

—Louis Armstrong


What we play is life.

—Louis Armstrong


Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

—Ludwig Von Beethoven


Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.

—Ludwig Von Beethoven


As far as being a 'player's player,' you've only got to go to Nashville or Argentina and you can forget about it. The world is full of amazing guitar players, and you know it, and I know it...it's a humbling experience...

—Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits


Wagner's music is better than it sounds.

—Mark Twain


I wonder what an agent would do if he had to travel with the band he's booking.

—Mary Lou Williams


Monk encouraged me to emancipate the drums from their subservient role as timekeepers.

—Max Roach


Oh, jazz and love are the hardest things to describe from rationale.

—Mel Torme


To me, nostalgia is nothing more than a mindless plundering of the past for the commonplace.

—Mel Torme


A good player can make any guitar sound good.

—Michael Bloomfield


Sometimes there are no gigs, but the main thing is the music. You can't take that away. The only person who can take that away from you is you.

—Mike Stern


You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport Festival.

—Miles Davis


Music is an addiction.

—Miles Davis


Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

—Miles Davis


I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

—Miles Davis


When you're creating your own shit, even the sky ain't the limit.

—Miles Davis


I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.

—Miles Davis


If they act too hip, you know they can't play shit.

—Miles Davis


Do not fear mistakes, there are none.

—Miles Davis


I never heard of a jazz musician who retired. You love what you do, so what are you going to do? Play for the walls?

—Nat Adderley


Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes


Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes


The idea is more important than the style or the contents of the style you're trying to play in.

—Ornette Coleman


It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

—Ornette Coleman


It's the hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know: you feel this, you play this.

—Ornette Coleman


Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

—Ornette Coleman


All of the sounds of the earth are like music.

—Oscar Hammerstein


It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.

—Oscar Peterson


Music makes on feel so romantic-at least it always gets on one's nerves-which is the same thing nowadays.

—Oscar Wilde


Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

—Pat Conroy


Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now.

—Pat Martino


...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing.

—Pat Metheny


I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

—Paul Desmond


The qualities in music which I considered most important -- and still do -- were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.

—Paul Desmond


I have won several prizes as the world's slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.

—Paul Desmond


I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

—Paul Desmond


I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

—Paul Desmond


Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.

—Paul Whiteman


The problem with jazz is that it is hidden in plain sight.

—Peter Gordon, Thirsty Ear Records


Modern music is as dangerous as narcotics.

—Pietro Mascagni


The high note is not the only thing.

—Placido Domingo


Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.

—Plato


Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness and life to everything.

—Plato


I would teach children music, physics and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys of learning.

—Plato


Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

—Quincy Jones


Music should never be harmless.

—Robbie Robertson


There is no truer truth obtainable by Man than comes of music

—Robert Browning


In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.

—Robert Schumann


Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

—Ronnie Scott


Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule.

—Samuel Butler


Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

—Samuel Butler


When Bird came on the scene, it was just as shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark, and then the light appeared for the first time.

—Shorty Rogers


Music is love in search of a word.

—Sidney Lanier


Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules too complex, there's some sort of musical explosion.

—Slash/Guns and Roses


I don't separate one era of jazz from another, because I listen to everybody... Everybody takes from everybody else and adds their own thing and goes on from there.

—Sonny Criss


I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress...so that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be bad enough to despair.

—Sonny Rollins


Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.

—Sonny Rollins


I'm fortunate that I'm making a living at it now because I'm not equipped to do anything else.

—Sonny Rollins


One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

—Sonny Rollins


No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

—Sonny Rollins


Even if you have some brilliant jazz ideas, it's going to be difficult to get them across unless you have (a) a distinctive sound or (b) a loud sound. These are musts.

—Sonny Rollins


The value of jazz still has to be clarified. People involve themselves with its superficialities without digging for its soul.

—Stan Getz


You don't rehearse jazz to death to get the camera angles.

—Stan Getz


A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

—Stan Getz


Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

—Stan Kenton


When you get to the top, don't forget to send the elevator down for the next guy.

—Stan Kenton


I think that a musician is like a doctor, he's supposed to heal people and make them feel better.

—Steve Turre


The world thinks that music is a commercial commodity. I'm glad that is not my code.

—Sun Ra


Where human eyes have never seen, where human beings have never been, I build a world of abstract dreams, and I wait for you.

—Sun Ra


You are the music while the music lasts.

—T.S. Eliot


Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

—Thelonious Monk


Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

—Thelonius Monk


I don't know where jazz is going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

—Thelonius Monk


Man, that cat is nuts!

—Thelonius Monk on Ornette Coleman


Like everything else in nature, music is a becoming, and it becomes its full self, when its sounds and laws are used by intelligent man for the production of harmony, and so made the vehicle of emotion and thought.

—Theodore Mungers


Your horn is your passport to the world.

—Tommy Smith


The golden curves and gorgeous sound of the saxophone have blown throughout the world like a beautiful breeze, inspiring many to study its charms.

—Tommy Smith


Tomorrow you'll wish you had practiced harder today.

—Tommy Smith


The saxophone's sonic possibilities are limitless, like an aural kaleidoscope. Its sound inspires sensuality but it but can rock out and scream with anger and frustration.

—Tommy Smith


I think one of the reasons I'm popular again is because I'm wearing a tie. You have to be different.

—Tony Bennett


Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

—Truman Capote


Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

—Victor Hugo


Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.

—Warren G. Bennis


Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going.

—Wes Montgomery


People whose sensibility is destroyed by music in trains, airports, lifts, cannot concentrate on a Beethoven Quartet.

—Witold Lutoslawski


The trouble with this country is that everything is new. We don't have any consideration for the past... Just because something is old, you don't just rip it down. You can renovate it instead of ripping it down and building something new.

—Woody Shaw


How great musicians demonstrate a mutual respect and trust on the bandstand can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life, understanding what it means to be a global citizen in the most modern sense.

—Wynton Marsalis


Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.

—Wynton Marsalis


Because of (early jazz writers) lack of understanding of the mechanics of music, they thought there weren't any mechanics. It was the "they all can sing, they all have rhythm" syndrome. If that was the case, why was there only one Louis Armstrong?

—Wynton Marsalis


External instruments are only extensions of the biological instrument.

—Yusef Lateef


As long as you've got your horn in your mouth, you're developing.

—Zoot Sims

[exuperantia]

Замечательная подборка! Спасибо! Пока прочитала половину: такое количество мудрости приходится принимать поционно ) Как это по-Эвансовски говорить так: "I have always preferred playing without an audience" Жаль, что для любимого Кэннонбола Аддерли не нашлось цитаты пионтереснее... Забавно, что авторы цитат - критики из Genius Guide to Jazz не называются никак, кроме как именем издания, а высказывания их острее, неприятнее, чем у самих музыкантов... И, интересно, сущестовала ли в реальности "Johann Sebastian Bach's guide dog"?

[NbP]

Как это по-Эвансовски говорить так: "I have always preferred playing without an audience"

Оказывается ,и в этом походил на Г.Гульда...

[exuperantia]

Оказывается ,и в этом походил на Г.Гульда...

Однако же ведь не походил в мощном осуществлении самой идеи?

[Дундук]

Прекрасная подборка, дорогой NbP!

Однако же ведь не походил в мощном осуществлении самой идеи?

Лишь формально, поскольку он действительно предпочитал записываться на концертах, особенно в последние годы жизни. Его отличие от Гульда заключается в том, что канадский музыкант любил записываться в студиях, а Эванс просто любил играть один - процесс студийной звукозаписи по тем или иным причинам всегда смущал его. Впрочем, на концертах последних лет его жизни часто складывается ощущение, что он играет without an audience - там a sense of oneness, о котором он писал в предисловии к пластинке Alone, обострено до предела.

Здесь можно найти еще несколько высказываний Эванса:

http://www.billevanswebpages.com/billquotes.html

[Califf]

Кстати, интересный момент: есть страх сцены, ну это понятно.

Но у многих людей, даже великих исполнителей, часто присутствует страх записи...
Почему? вопрос отдельного потока....

[exuperantia]

складывается ощущение, что он играет without an audience - там a sense of oneness, о котором он писал в предисловии к пластинке Alone, обострено до предела.

В поисках liner notes к "Alone" набрела на хороший сайт the Bill Evans Memorial library, представяющий собой подробную дискографию, список всех записей, интервью и т.п. http://www.billevans.net/intro1.html Однако, пока не совсем понятно, есть ли возможность их оттуда извлекать.

На этом сайте несколько высказываний о Б.Э. Привожу их здесь в дополнение к исходной коллекции цитат.

"To me, Bill was the Chopin of Jazz. I loved him and respected him as a person as well as a musician, he was a great artist."
Jimmy Rowles

"Bill was both a creative artist and a virtuoso pianist and I heard from him some of the greatest accompaniment I know in music. He was my friend and I miss him"
John Lewis

"Bill’s contribution to the World of music and aesthetics cannot be measured. Those he inspired know. I personally have learned a great deal from him"
Chick Corea

"My memories of Bill and his music are beautiful. As a human being, he was sincere and gentle. He was one of the greatest pianists and his memory will live in the minds of people and his fellow musicians for ever."
McCoy Tyner

"I am delighted to have this opportunity to pay my respects to one of my all time favourite jazz pianists - the late and great Bill Evans. I wish to thank those that made it possible and trust you will consider my rendition of Waltz for Debby, on this tribute album, to be the most sincere token of my respect for Bill Evans."
George Shearing

"He came through with chord voicings that were refreshingly new tonalities from what I had been hearing and based on traditional harmonies, he used his own voicings which gave them a new sound. His pianistic style has influenced pianists all over the world and his concepts added greatly to the store house of jazz piano."
Teddy Wilson

"Of all the pianists who have influenced my playing, Bill leads the pack. Bill was a master of harmony and touch. I had never heard anyone play like Bill before. He knocked me out"
Herbie Hancock

[exuperantia]

Дочитала вторую половину. Кладезь мудрости, перечитывать до просветления Очень вдохновляюще звучит Дейвисовское: "Не бойтесь делать ошибок: их не бывает".

Могу добавить кое-какие цитаты:

Музыка во время обеда - это оскорбление и для повара, и для скрипача.
Г. Честертон

Музыка обманчива: она может перенести человека в рай, который действительно существует.
А. Файз

Игра на фортепиано - движение пальцев; исполнение на фортепиано - движение души. Обычно мы слышим только первое.
А.Г. Рубинштейн

Пожалуйста, напишите музыку как Вагнер, только громче.
С.Голдвин, инструктируя композитора, который будет писать музыку для фильма

Чтобы полюбить музыку, надо прежде всего ее слушать.
Д.Д.Шостакович

Музыка - это искусство печалить и радовать без причины.
Т.Котарбиньский

Звук должен быть окутан тишиной.
Г.Нейгауз

Музыка - поэзия воздуха.
Ж.П. Рихтер

Музыка в большей связи с нравственными поступками человека, нежели обыкновенно думают.
В.Ф. Одоевский

Счастливых музыка делает еще счастливее, несчастных - еще несчастнее.
В.А.Крачковский

Музыка - это разум, воплощенный в прекрасных звуках.
И.С. Тургенев

Первый концерт Генделя в Лондоне не имел успеха. Это очень встревожило друзей композитора, но сам он остался невозмутим. "Не волнуйтесь!, - сказал он, - В пустом зале музыка звучит лучше."

[After hours]

Of all the pianists who have influenced my playing, Bill leads the pack.
Herbie Hancock

Я знал, я знал, что он это скажет! Именно от Херби Хэнкока я ожидал это услышать.

Очень вдохновляюще звучит Дейвисовское: "Не бойтесь делать ошибок: их не бывает".

А это, наверное, только для джазменов справедливо

[Дундук]

На этом сайте несколько высказываний о Б.Э. Привожу их здесь в дополнение к исходной коллекции цитат.

Тогда приведу высказывания всех музыкантов, задействованных в предыстории события, их "спровоцировавшего":

After the untimely death of Bill Evans in 1980, an impressive tribute album was recorded, one of the first to appear of the more than 50 tribute albums up to now. Herb Wong, producer and jazz writer, and Helen Keane, producer and livelong manager of Bill Evans put together an all-star line-up of pianists, perhaps the most impressive collection of keyboardists ever assembled for a single project. Fourteen artists gathered to record solo tributes to the late Bill Evans in the spring and summer of 1982, some doing tunes by Evans and others songs associated with him, but each in their own style. This resulted in the album "Bill Evans: A Tribute" This recording, released initially in 1983 as double LP on the former Palo Alto Jazz label, quickly disappeared from the market and was later reissued in 1991 as CD (TBA-802. On the backside of the cover: "Proceeds from the sale of this album will be allocated to the Bill Evans Jazz Piano Scholarship Fund, to be administrated by Palo Alto Records, Keyboard Magazine and the National Association of Jazz Educators".


On the inside of the cover of the double LP (Click to enlarge the original LP cover) the recorded contemporary fellow pianists made the next statements on the music and personality of Bill Evans:

Teddy Wilson (1912-1986): "But Beautiful"

He came through with chord voicings that were refreshingly new tonalities from what I had been hearing, and based on traditional harmonies he used his own voicings which gave them a new sound. His pianistic style influenced pianists all over the world and his concepts added greatly to the store house of jazz piano.

John Lewis (1920-2001): "I'll Remember April"

Bill was both a great creative artist and a virtuoso pianist, and in addition, I heard from him some of the greatest accompaniment I know of in music. He added an immeasurable contribution to American music. He was my friend and I miss him.

Chick Corea: "Time Remembered"

Bill's contribution to the world of music and aesthetics is unable to be measured. Those he inspired know. I personally have learned a great deal from him!

Jimmy Rowles (1918-1996): "How Deep Is The Ocean"

To me Bill was the Chopin of jazz. I loved him and respected him as a person. He was a great artist.

McCoy Tyner: "We Will Meet Again"

My memories of Bill, like his music, are beautiful. As a human being, he was a very sincere and gentle person. I first met Bill playing opposite him at Birdland when I was with Coltrane. He was one of the greatest pianists, and his memory will live in the minds of people and his fellow musicians forever.

Herbie Hancock: "Dolphin Dance"

Of all the pianists who have influenced my playing, Bill leads the pack as far as the quality and the amount of influence. I've always been influenced by harmony and touch. Bill was a master of both. The first time I heard him was on "Kind of Blue" with Miles - the whole concept of modal playing began with that piece. Aside from Miles, it was Bill who utilized the modal approach the most. I had been listening to oscar peterson, Horace Silver, and all, but I never heard anyone play like Bill before. He knocked me out - I loved it!

Dave McKenna: "Emily"

I knew Bill slightly for many years and admired his music. In the last few years I have learned just how much I loved his music and the man, and I miss him very much. It was towards the end of his life that listening to him got me deeply interested in modern music.

George Shearing: "Waltz For Debby"

Finally I was given an opportunity to pay respects to one of my all time favorite jazz pianists, the late and great Bill Evans. I wish to thank those who made this possible and trust you will consider this rendition the most sincere token of respects to Bill within my power.

Andy Laverne: "Your Story"

Bill Evans was always a great source of inspiration to me, both musically and personally. Musically, he was a true innovator in the realm of improvised music. In that way, he taught me to be true to my own voice musically, to absorb and use my influences, not to mimic them. Personally he was a true friend, always encouraging and supportive, but not in an unrealistic way. I will miss Bill and his music, yet through the music he left us, his spirit will live on. Bill, 'your story' will continue.

Warren Bernhardt: "Fun Ride"

It is to our great good fortune that Bill left us his many recordings. These span virtually his entire career and they accurately reflect what he was focusing on at any given time. In case you never knew Bill, or want to get to know him and his work better, or perhaps you have already begun to forget how marvelously he played the piano - please take full advantage of his recorded legacy. Thank you Bill, for not forgetting us.

Joanne Brackeen: "Song For Helen"

To me he relayed a very natural human spirit. He had a tremendous urge and love to communicate, and he did so by means of his magical connection with the piano, his way of looking at everything from many different angles, always endeavoring to reach to the inner side of things both musically and humanly. Through his music he turned fantasies into living, breathing realities that remain with us.

Denny Zeitlin: "Quiet Now"

I was in college when I first heard Bill on a George Russell Jazz Workshop album. I was tremendously impressed, and, of course, knocked out by the priceless series of trio recordings on Riverside that followed. his gift to piano jazz, and to the music as a whole, is immense. Not all great musicians have the capacity to take a non-competitive delight in the work of others. Bill did, and I treasure the enthusiasm and support he gave me at several important points over the year. I am veru touched that he chose to record "Quiet Now" on three different occasions. To me the piece has always had the quality of a requiem, and I would like to dedicate it to Bill.

Richie Beirach: "Blue And Green"

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight. The important things do not cange, WE change.... Bill Evans had courage, the courage to wait. He fought the battle and won ...He was and is my main inspiration musically. He inspired an entire generation of musicians ... I feel very privileged to be part of this memorial recording, and hope that Bill can hear us playing for him.

Dave Frishberg: "Night And Day"

I first met Bill at Cafe Bohemia in New York when he was with Miles Davis' group. A few years later we chatted from time to time when I played solo opposite his trio at the "Top of the Gate". It wasn't until a few months before he died that the two of us finally had some substantial conversations, in person and on the phone. Of course, I was impressed by his musical intelligence and his exquisite harmonic system. What struck me especially was the way he could play such assertive jazz time without sounding percussive. I enjoy hearing him egged on by an aggressive rhythm section. My favorite Bill evans album is "Everybody Digs Bill Evans", where he's accompanied by Philly Joe Jones and Sam Jones. Bill plays "Night and Day" on that album, and that's the tune I chose to play for this tribute to him.

Весьма показательно, насколько разные по творческой манере музыканты решили объединиться, чтобы записать tribute-album - от близких по духу Эвансу Джона Льюиса и Джорджа Ширинга до совершенно противоположных ему Дэйва МакКенны и Тэдди Уилсона.