David Amram Quotes

I wanted to play some more grown-up music - jazz.

My music is jazz.

Jazz was my first love.

I still prefer the bebop of the '40s. The very stuff I started out with is still the best to me. I have come full circle.

More than anybody else I'd like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform.

Jazz is progressive, and it's alive.

Whenever Elvin Jones comes to Seattle I try to go catch him.

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.'

As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.

Swing is my favorite kind of music.

The first records I heard were from Dizzy Gillespie and people like that.

I've been listening to jazzmen, especially saxophonists, since the time of the early Count Basie records, which featured Lester Young. Pres was my first real influence, but the first horn I got was an alto, not a tenor.

One of my favorite venues is the Bowery Ballroom in New York. I love the room; there's a tiny stage, but I really like the feel of it.

Glasgow Barrowlands is the greatest concert venue in the world.

Jazz, and the history of jazz, is the history of America.

I remember the night when I was playing at Birdland, and Duke Ellington walked in wearing that cap of his and with all his elegance. The Duke then came backstage, and I was there with my band. That's the one thing I miss.

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.

Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.

I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.

Jazz music, as is also the case with the old down-home spirituals, gospel and jubilee songs, jumps, shouts and moans, is essentially an American vernacular or idiomatic modification of musical conventions imported from Europe, beginning back during the time of the early settlers of the original colonies.

My favorite venues are the 2,000 seat theaters, like the Warfield. If there was a Warfield in every city, I would play it. That's all I would do. I love venues like that.

I went to see Alison Krauss and Union Station at Disney Hall and I would say it was one of the most astonishing sonic experiences I have had. It's an enormous room that's acoustically perfect. My interpretation of receiving music as a layman is that the way the music kind of settled on me in that room was perfection.

I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.

Darlin... be-bop is the music of the future.

Jazz to me is a living music. It's a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.