Jamie Cullum Quotes

I grew up listening to John Coltrane and jazz, so they were subtle influences. I sometimes think about doing some kind of weird jazz record, but I don't know... It's on my list of things to do. I don't want to have to then go promote it.

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.

I flow between modern and traditional jazz, between samba and choro - all maybe in a week's time.

I sounded like myself. People be saying I sound like Miles or Clifford Brown.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.

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

Jazz scares me. I've witnessed so many incredible singers and jazz musicians. Pop and soul music have always been the things that I felt like I could do.

I had always been a jazz fan - Django Reinhardt, Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, the early George Benson. And I come from the Hank Marvin melodic upbringing. So blues, I loved, but I also liked jazz. Therefore, my style was more lyrical.

I suppose technically I could say I'm based in jazz, just because it's the school of thought that I've been encouraging myself to operate within.

When I heard Charlie Parker, I knew that that was going to be the new wave, the new way to play jazz. From that point on, I was sold with... the idea of bebop.

One thing about playing the real jazz is that you can't count it.

Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden!

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.

Coltrane would do what you'd get a Roland Pro Tools module to do but with a group of jazz musicians.

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.

Grover Washington was my main influence, and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

I like to listed to the adventurous guys - the Coltranes, Miles Davis, the guys who just let it loose.

It's always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn't. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it's music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic... You're pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I'm a musician.

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

So I went into jazz and performed in jazz clubs all over the country.

I already experimented with free jazz in the 1960s and, in my opinion, to play free jazz, you have to be a perfect musician and a perfect human being - and none of us are!

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.