Dianne Reeves Quotes

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

I listen to anything anyone gives me. I always go back to a few basic favorites. I can always listen to Django Reinhardt and hear something I haven't heard before. I like to listen to Art Tatum and Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Those are guys who never seem to run out of ideas.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.

I wanted to make somebody feel like Coltrane made me feel, listening to it.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

I've always been crazy for the American songbook.

Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.

I listen to jazz about three hours a day. I love Louis Armstrong.

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

Great music was written by the great geniuses, and you want to do it justice.

I didn't grow up during the time that Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis and all those people were playing. So it's not really my responsibility to keep it up, what they were doing.

My father is a jazz musician, so I grew up hearing jazz. My parents loved it, but I didn't like it. It went on for too long. Yes, I had certain teachers that really inspired me, like Danny Barker, and John Longo. And I had no idea that I would have any impact on jazz.

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

I think you have to have a jazz pedigree to be on jazz radio.

The first thing is, jazz is one of the few things to let you know that there is a God and there is a creation.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I'm a great jazz fan.

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.

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

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

I'm really getting to appreciate traditional jazz now - the New Orleans stuff - a lot more than I did before.

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

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