Lee Konitz Quotes

In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.

As a kid, I used to go see all the jazz players, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespe.

Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.

If you don't already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.

I believe deeply that jazz is still a very vital music that has much to say, not just to eggheads, or whatever the musical equivalent of an egghead is, but to ordinary people.

I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

I'm not a big jazz fan.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

Growing up, I was very much interested in jazz music.

People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before.

I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something tremendously special. But I am a jazz fan.

We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city.

I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life.

Jazz is a constant theme in my life. My father is a jazz pianist, and from an early age I have been surrounded by it.

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

Part of what I like to do with Brainfeeder is to get the younger kids hearing jazz, because they don't know where to go to really hear it. Brainfeeder gives me a platform to put out people like Kamasi Washington or Austin Peralta.

Jazz musicians, in a way, are nerds. We are so in our world.

Jazz is an interesting music. It's one of the few forms of music where everyone that's performing the music has a creative stake in the music. In jazz, everyone's improvising, and everyone's creating at the same time.

I was introduced to jazz, and that's become a basic concern and passion of mine ever since.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.

I always say that the problem with jazz accessibility is not the content of the music, it's people's ability to access it.