I was a beginner again. I practiced hard and used to listen very closely to recordings of American jazz drummers such as Tony Williams and Kenny Clarke.
If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.
Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.
Too many jazz pianists limit themselves to a personal style, a trademark, so to speak. They confine themselves to one type of playing.
After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz.
As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.
I started writing songs when I was 10. It was a natural way to express myself as a kid. It wasn't until I started listening to jazz, joined the choir and picked up a guitar that my little hobby became something far more serious.
The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.
I progressed through so many different styles of music through my teen years, both as a player and a vocalist, particularly the jazz and pop of the early 20th Century.
It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days.
I like all kinds of music, though I tend to prefer jazz and classics.
I'm thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.
All New Orleans music is based off dance music, even jazz.
Jazz, of course, is our heritage. Jazz is a culture, it's not a fad. It's up to us to see to it that it stays alive.
I'd been studying philosophy at the University of Chicago. I hadn't been doing well, because I was sitting in with jazz musicians at night - it's hard to read Heidegger, but it's especially hard if you're half asleep.
My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians.
The way that we imitate each others' riffs is something that other bands don't do as much. If we're jamming with a jazz band, or I am jamming with a jazz band, I have to catch myself, the tendency is always to do that.
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
One of the things jazz has always excelled at is translating the reality of the times through its musical prism.
I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist.
I wanted to make a jazz record. I didn't want it to be a standards record.
It was a particularly interesting and exciting time, and the European political and artistic establishment was turned on by the Civil Rights Movement and the artistic revolution that was becoming a part of jazz.
I am not comparing myself to great artists, but when you see conceptual artists at work, on some level it's reassuring to know they can paint figuratively. Likewise, when you listen to the '50s jazz people who do these vast solos, you buy into it more if they open by playing a tune.
I put out a recording of me singing mostly jazz because I wanted people to know I'm coming from a jazz background.
I hate Stanley Clark, but I have to admit he's playing Jazz whether I like it or not.
I have been steadily exchanging a rock audience who were nervous about what they had just bought for a jazz audience who not only were happy with their purchase, but are increasingly coming again.
George Benson conquered many different genres, from pop ballads to R&B to jazz.
I played saxophone, so I was into jazz. I learned from each audience and each teacher that I had. I can't really tell you any rules or anything, but the way I develop my beliefs is really just by personally learning from different situations.
You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment.
The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.
People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.
The public, hearing pop music, is, without knowing it, also soaking up jazz.
The whole point is, give me a break with the standards. You go to the average jazz label and suggest a record and they want to know which standards you're going to play. I'm saying let's break the formula.
When I sang that song, I felt it was almost as if some force had moved into my body. Things like that have only happened to me singing jazz. It doesn't happen when singing pop. I get so deeply into the music, it feels like I've become someone else.
If you're more interested in looking like a hipster, a jazz musician, or a young hunk, I'd recommend the pork pie. It has a narrow brim and a flat top.