Alissa Quart Quotes

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

Oh yeah, that was the thing to do at that time. This was before the new wave of bebop started.

Coltrane came to New Orleans one day and he was talking about the jazz scene. And Coltrane mentions that the problem with jazz was that there were too few groups.

Most of what I listen to now is mainstream jazz from 1935 right up to and including early bebop and cool jazz.

I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians.

I like to go hear jazz late-night up in Harlem.

When it's all said and done, jazz with a capital J is where I'm coming from. Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk - that's what I really studied when I was a teenager and what really fueled my passion.

I came through the bebop era, and to me that was enough.

I have always loved jazz music and as a teen growing up in New York City and then later on as an adult have great memories of the jazz clubs that were all located on 52nd Street. I still catch as many jazz shows as I can when I am in New York. And when I perform, I have my jazz quartet by my side. Jazz musicians keep things spontaneous and very "live," which is the way I like to perform.

They say that Jazz is back, and I don't think it's gone anywhere. But they say it's back.

Jazz musicians are the coolest people on the planet. Can I have some cool?

There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

As late as the early '50s, jazz was still, for the most part, a genuinely popular music, a utilitarian, song-based idiom to which ordinary people could dance if they felt like it.

I like to listen to classical music... I like mainline jazz.

I'm not a big jazz fan.

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

I listen to jazz mainly. Mainstream jazz.

My musical influences are from the '50s: Bill Evans, Miles Davis and Ahmad Jamal.

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

Be-bop wasn't developed in any deliberate way.

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 find early jazz to be the most revolutionary music of its time.

Benny Goodman was one of the big influences as a clarinet player. That's why I wanted the clarinet.

I've always loved jazz.