Ryan Adams Quotes

I just wanted to experiment with the bass, and my main influence from Jaco Pastorius inspired me to write music in a certain way.

I write a lot of rhymes, but I don't really end up using them a lot of times, and I end up just freestyling. I like to write music, though, more than I like to freestyle, to be honest.

What I'm doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word - I love it.

I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.

I hear many extra-musical things somehow in Coltrane.

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

To me, Bill's musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.

I think that's what I love about jazz is that you can do what you want, and you're allowed to mess up.

Jazz changes and all. But I don't know the names of what it is I'm doing.

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

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.

The starting point of all great jazz has got to be format, a language that you can work within that, in some ways, is much tighter than the blues or even gospel. It's all working towards the same destination - the difference being that Miles Davis flew there, and I'm still taking the subway.

I used to be just a total jazz freak. People used to say, 'Where's the melody? Is there a melody in there anywhere?' Now I let the music follow the song.

I always leaned toward free jazz... experimental jazz and progressive jazz. I feel like jazz is just part of the flavor and palette that you have as a musician to experiment with.

In essence, I feel I'm more jazz guitar player because I write vehicles geared for improvisation.

When I write the music for any of my songs, I write as a composer-lyricist in my head.

People think jazz music is all standards and the Great American Songbook. But it's really about the sensibility, the feel you bring to the music.

I consider myself a jazz singer. I think I stick to the roots of improvisation, singing in front of the beat, behind the beat, playing with notes and harmonies.

Rock & roll fan that I am, Thelonious Monk is probably my favorite musical artist.

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

Jazz is a hard music, and you have to really work hard and also have fun performing; that's the most important thing.