Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

Getting into the banjo and discovering that it was an African-American instrument, it totally turned on its head my idea of American music - and then, through that, American history.

If you look at the history of music, you have classical composers, church music, pop music, etc. Music that's existed for centuries. I think there are some songs that are close to immortal. They will last longer than we will in this lifetime.

I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are.

Because of the fashion, the young people don't have any access to the history of music, unless people like me revive it. There are very few people to revive it, because you can't earn any money doing it.

It's very important to me that I at least know the history of the music.

I grew up with KTSU, and that station gave me so much info about the pantheon of black sounds: reggae, gospel, blues, soul, hip hop, and mostly they played jazz. That was a major part of how I understood music.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

I don't know anything about the history of music.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music.

Historically, black music has influenced other cultures and other genres and created other genres.

Man I mean, the great thing about playing clubs in Harlem is people have an appreciation not just for the music but for the history of the music.

I'm an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American - blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.

Hip-hop's always reached out to kids. If you look at the last 10 big albums it might seem ironic. But when I look at the history of this music it's always had a lot of positivity.

I went back and researched the history of gospel; where it came from, slavery times, communicating with each other without their master knowing what they are saying, and that gospel artists view themselves differently.

We have to let the younger generations take our music - and approach it the way they want - but just teach them where it all comes from.

Jazz, and the history of jazz, is the history of America.

The stories in our music form a special viewpoint on the story of America in the 20th Century.

People should feel proud about the music that we have in our country, and that's my objective.

Music is part of our culture.

We have that storytelling history in country and bluegrass and old time and folk music, blues - all those things that combine to make up the genre. It was probably storytelling before it was songwriting, as far as country music is concerned. It's fun to be a part of that and tip the hat to that. You know, and keep that tradition alive.

It may be that my most helpful contributions to music aren't my compact discs but my articles about other great singers of the past for American Heritage magazine.

The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.

Music is part of history, and our history has lessons that cannot be separated from our greatest music.