Joshua Henry Quotes

I thought it was time to get a group together and the first person I thought of was Wayne Shorter. I called Wayne and in the meantime, Wayne called me to make an album with him, which was Super Nova.

All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.

I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully.

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.

I studied jazz at home with my grandparents. They always had jazz dudes at the house, but I didn't study formally. I just hung around a lot of musicians.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

I just got to hear every note. After I left Birdland, I started working at the Jazz Gallery. In the end, I still couldn't play, but I knew how to listen. I was probably the world's best listener.

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.

Now is a good time, 10 years ago would have been a good time, and 10 years from now it will still be a good time to see a dynamic, entertaining movie that's wall-to-wall Miles Davis where the music will hopefully spark some desire to know more about the man.

I'm not a big jazz fan.

I never played music, but it's an important thing ... the studying, the inspiration.

I have tons of jazz records: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis. I could go on and on.

I just don't know anything about jazz, really. I've never really listened to it, but I'd definitely like to discover more about it.

I think everybody has to kind of decide what the word 'jazz' means to them, and that's fine.

I've met a lot of jazz musicians in my day, and they're all funny.

What I love about jazz is that it's full of legends, full of myths. It's an oral history because it started in New Orleans and Kansas City, under the radar.

I've been a massive obsessive about jazz singers all my life.

I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music.

I was really a nerd, and I was really more of a jazz nerd. So when I had my chance to put on something, most of the time it was going to be jazz, or gospel, or something like that.

We don't live in a jazz world, unfortunately. I think if I had lived in a jazz world, I would have done OK. I'm not sure I would have done great. I'm a lover of jazz music, so I would have been happy, don't get me wrong. I go to jazz concerts like the biggest jazz fan in world. The drag is that I don't play jazz for a living.

Out of all the artistic things I do, music is the most rewarding because it's so hard to write songs.

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've always wanted to record a jazz record. I did one in the '70s with Barbara Carroll. It's been a journey.

Today jazz is still very much alive. Everywhere I go there's a new generation of musicians.

I'm always doing something musically - when I'm working or when I'm off.