Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Bird's mind and fingers work with incredible speed. He can imply four chord changes in a melodic pattern where another musician would have trouble inserting two.
When you drive by Radio City and you see your name up there and it's only 'your' name. I just went 'ooh'. I thought this is really like looking at another person.
I've had a life that has taken many interesting paths. I've learned a lot from mentors who were instrumental in shaping me, and I want to share what I've learned.
My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.
With all the travelling and performing I've been doing, it's hard to find time to practice! But seriously, I probably did most of my practicing when I was younger.
I got a chance to listen to and watch Thelonious Monk and his quartet play two shows a night, for six weeks. It was a great education. There was my university, man.
I spent a lot of time playing in miserable places that were not a lot of fun. Somebody once said it is character building and I was like: My character is just fine.
I'm one of the people who was a pioneer in encouraging musicians, early in the game, to get interested in technology, and now all the musicians are getting into it.
The biggest problem in South Africa is that we have a disrupted timeline. Historically, politically, spiritually, economically, in people's minds, in people's heads.
Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music!
I like to be on the edge, on the cutting edge, or be into the unknown, into the territory where I have to depend on being in the moment and depending on my instincts.
None of the jazz greats made music for the purpose of you going to check out music before them. Michael Jackson didn't make music so you could go check out Sam Cooke.
They say, 'We will give you money, but we want you to play this or that.' And I always thought, 'If I'm going to do that, I might as well go back and be a dishwasher.'
It's one thing to just play a tune, or play a program of music, but it's another thing to practically create a new language of music, which is what 'Kind of Blue' did.
Without a doubt, my richest relationships are my long-term friendships with musical partners, because we make music together. That's what we love to do with our lives.
Now, when I play soul piano, for instance, and I play a rendition of 'Spain,' I do it deconstructively. That's the most fun, but I can only do that when I'm on my own.
You're creating an intimacy that everybody feels, that it's their experience, not yours. I'll never introduce a song and say, now this song is about 'my' broken heart.
Playing solo is difficult because you have to keep the momentum yourself. You have to continue to create and develop, so it forces you to stretch in a variety of ways.
That's a skill that I'm proud of: to be able to be a jazz musician and go a bit crazy sometimes and other times be able to pull it all in and lay it down like a track.
My hands look terrible but I can do anything I want to do, so, you know, I just think I'm playing all around with more good taste and not dashing up and down the piano.
I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.
Many fail to realize this great recording industry was built by so-called jazz artists. And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well.
When John said that he wanted me to play with him on piano, I told him that there were many others who were qualified. He said, 'I want you there because you can do it.'
The title 'Now He Sings, Now He Sobs' comes from 'I Ching,' an ancient Chinese book that I was into in the '60s when I was studying different philosophies and religions.
The album is a definite departure. I haven't written original material before, except for one song on my first album, but Elvis and I did six songs together on this one.
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.
"Cannonball Adderley said, 'First 20 minutes we'll jazz out, then the last hour it's gonna be songs that people paid to see.' Which is why he was driving a Rolls-Royce."
Just as it is fire's nature to burn, it is meditation's nature to heal, to bring peace and uplift you beyond your worldly environment and transport you to a higher plane.
There were some things that I found I really enjoyed singing about; like, on the title track, there's this film-noir character of a woman who's sort of losing it in a room.
I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was a different person. I met a lot of good jazz players in the army.
Then I started listenin' a lot to classical composers. Piano works. Just to see what they were doin'. That sort of put me in a different groove to try to blend all that in.
First of all, I swore it was two people playing. When I finally admitted to myself that was one man, I gave up the piano for a month. I figured it was hopeless to practice.
It is good to be different, because difference is great; that's what this music is based on. But lose that energy between the audience and the players, and you have nothing.
There's a certain kind of time that's metronomic, that's correct, but doesn't want you want to dance. It doesn't make you want to move, and it doesn't make you want to play.
I've always known I was gifted, which is not the easiest thing in the world for a person to know, because you're not responsible for your gift, only for what you do with it.
Altruism is written in everlasting and resplendent character on the Cross of Christ, and it was at Calvary that the centre of life was shifted from selfishness to sacrifice.
At the risk of being a fuddy-duddy I don't have a computer; I don't have e-mail; and I really don't need something in my house that I would be sitting in front of for hours.
I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea. The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.
I want to remind people that black music is amazing. And there are all forms of it that we've forgotten, you know? Rock music is black music! Don't forget that's what it is.
As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in.So, I'm concerned about peace.I'm concerned about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment.
Sometimes you have to create a vision, a path for a vision. It may not be apparent, and you may have to forge it yourself. And that will be the way to move your life forward.
The house is in turmoil with records on every space. In the kitchen and in the dining room is covered with records. I don't have a big enough house to accommodate everything.
[The producer told me:] "We can try one more record, and we'll see how that one does." Those records never did anything. My music never got mentioned. My color got mentioned.
I knew I wanted to write on religious themes when I was a GI in World War II. I saw and experienced so much violence that I thought I could express my outrage best with music.
I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, 'Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.'
I don't think I think when I play. I have a photographic memory for chords, and when I'm playing, the right chords appear in my mind like photographs long before I get to them.
Ultimately, musicians of the world must come to realize the potential of their calling... If the musician is illuminated from within, he becomes a lamp that lights other lamps.
I have been tied up with music for about as long as I can remember. By the time I was four I was picking out little tunes my mother played on the reed organ in the living-room.
I despair about the lack of proper respect shown for the piano. If you want it to sound like a traffic jam, go out in the street and forget the piano. That's not a piano sound.
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.