I'd actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
Bobby McFerrin

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
Mose Allison

My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.
Mose Allison

Jazz has an audience all around the globe and has had for many decades, I think speaking of the United States, let's say that what we need is more of an official recognition.
Sonny Rollins

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.
Sonny Rollins

What I see for the band by the end of this year is the Complex live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I want my guys to be comfortable. I'm certainly not in this for the money, but I'd really like to see my guys make some money off of this stuff.
Jimmy Chamberlin

When I was doing jazz concerts in America, I would use the biggest names I could find.
Norman Granz

Coltrane would do what you'd get a Roland Pro Tools module to do but with a group of jazz musicians.
Colin Greenwood

He would catapult you forward, and that was his intention with the Jazz Messengers. He would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.
Benny Green

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

I listen to classical music very much. There's a lot of jazz that I don't enjoy listening to.
Lee Konitz

I have seen great jazz musicians die obscure and drinking themselves to death and not really being able to get any work and working in small, funky jazz clubs.
Sonny Rollins

I like a lot of electronica. I like older jazz rather than newer.
Greg Ginn

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.
Nat King Cole

Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.
Lee Konitz

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.
Norman Granz

I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.
Boz Scaggs

I'm concerned with trend. I don't know where jazz fans will come from 20 years from now.
Norman Granz

Jazz radio is not very friendly to pop singers who decide to make a jazz record. But a lot of people have been. A lot of the people I've talked to like the record.
Rita Coolidge

That's kind of like how jazz is sometimes. You're out there predicting the future, and no one believes you.
Branford Marsalis