Ben Webster Quotes

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some 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 loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique.

In those days before hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy, and before learning of the so-called bebop era--by the way, I have some thoughts about that word, "bebop"--my first jazz hero ever, jazz improvisor hero, was Lester Young. I was a big "Lester Young-oholic," and all of my buddies were Lester Young-oholics. We'd get together and dissect, analyze, discuss, and listen to Lester Young's solos for hours and hours and hours. He was our god.

I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.

I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

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

People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before.

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

We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city.

I found that jazz musicians, possibly more than their classical counterparts, wear long-standing friendships easily and gracefully.

I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life.

Charlie Parker was a genius, as was Lester Young.

I grew up in a jazz household. They made me listen to jazz before I could hear my Motown.

I'm an old Coltrane disciple just like I'm a Christian.

I still find it hard to believe that the whole era of jazz is over.

Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I'm a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.

I studied jazz at home with my grandparents. They always had jazz dudes at the house, but I didn't study formally. I just hung around a lot of musicians.

I've played with jazz and toyed with it when I used to live near the St. Nicholas Pub in Harlem.

A lot of young people want to become jazz singers, but there are not more jam sessions like there used to be. I just want to have the opportunity to be able to bring that to some young people.

We all listened to a lot of recorded music, especially American jazz, modern jazz, and that's where our studies were and our inspiration came from.

Even when I was studying musical theater in college, after I would have theory at 8 in the morning and be on crew for productions until 11 at night, from 12 A.M. to 3 A.M. I was hanging out with jazz musicians.