DJ Premier Quotes

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

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

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

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

I hear many extra-musical things somehow in Coltrane.

My playing started to develop through the Miles Davis stuff I was listening to.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

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

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 think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

Jazz changes and all. But I don't know the names of what it is I'm doing.

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.

In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.

I didn't know what the hell Charlie Parker was playing... I just liked the way he played.

So I went into jazz and performed in jazz clubs all over the country.

I don't know any jazz stuff. I don't know how to jam in that way. So jamming, for me, is writing a tune.

I loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique.

People think jazz music is all standards and the Great American Songbook. But it's really about the sensibility, the feel you bring to the music.

I didn't really think I liked jazz all that much until I was about 18. That's when the freedom and possibilities of it began to seem appealing to me.

The fact of the matter is that nobody understands what John Coltrane is doing except John Coltrane. And maybe not even him. So we're all experiencing it on this subconscious level.

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

See, we started out with a foundation of blues. But then we added people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane to the mix and gave rock n' roll a much more complex structure. It made it possible to play more than three chords.