Brian Stokes Mitchell Quotes

When I got through, Duke Ellington stood up and started the applause.

As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.

My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden.

The history of all big jazz bands shows was, first they played for dancing, and then they played for singing.

At 14 and 15, I used to listen to Tito Puente, Dave Valentine and everything that was happening with American jazz. I love it.

My father was incredible on trumpet and played with the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

I belonged to the Columbia Record Club, and that's where my records came from. For some reason, I was in the 'jazz' category. I got Benny Goodman records and Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, and that kind of stuff. I really was not a jazz guy at all, but I knew some of those names.

I've been saying for almost 20 years that I need to do a jazz project and it ought to be either big band or I should do some jazz songs with a trio or quartet.

Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.

If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.

It was by listening to Goodman's band, that I began to notice the guitarist Charlie Christian, who was one of the first musicians to play solos in a big band set-up.

All of the most popular music of the '30s and '40s were deeply informed by jazz.

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

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

My great hero is Billie Holiday, and I've always wanted to do an album of standards with a piano-led quartet.

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.

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

And, well of course, Count Basie, and I think all of the black bands of the late thirties and early forties, bands with real players. They had an influence on everybody, not just drummers.

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

So I was always around music and my dad was in his own way a progressive jazzer, a big band jazzer guy.

And I loved Fats Waller. I love his instrumental abilities, his vocal abilities and his sense of humor.

I'm a trumpet player, and I sing jazz.

When I came out of the conservatory, the first thing I did was to go see Thelonious Monk.

I listen to a lot of jazz. I'm a big Sinatra geek. I love Chet Baker.

I wanted to be a jazz musician.