Lee Konitz Quotes

I wouldn't argue that anyone living can play the trumpet better than Wynton Marsalis.

I can't really say enough about Chris Potter. He is one of the greatest musicians I have ever known, and every second I have been on the band stand with him has been an absolute pleasure.

Some people are born with a brain that has this weird, magical mathematical thing that makes them an amazing jazz musician.

Needless to say, anybody who can stumble through a C-major scale knows that Art Tatum always gave his audiences 10 times their money's worth.

Clifford Brown was in the jazz circles considered to be probably the greatest trumpet player who ever lived.

No one in the world can beat Ella Fitzgerald as a riff singer.

I always tell people that, just to be a bad jazz musician, you have to be better than most musicians. The worst jazz musicians are normally better than most musicians, because you have to know so much.

My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing two notes on the saxophone at the same time, which is impossible.

It takes an intelligent ear to listen to Jazz.

I'm not Bill Evans. I'm not Keith Jarrett. I'm basically a singer who plays along with his voice.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

The first time I heard a Billie Holiday record, I thought, 'What's so great about Billie Holiday?'

I don't play the traditional Charlie Parker songs. But I do improvise and I do create with my instrument, and that to me is jazz. But there are people who use the word 'jazz' only in a traditional sense, and they would be offended by that, and that's fine.

They're not particular about whether you're playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

I'm comfortable singing jazz. The only thing I was concerned about is that everybody, even in jazz, has their own style. To me, the queen of doodling was Ella Fitzgerald, and scatting is something I never thought I could do.

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

It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.

I haven't done anything with Chick Corea. He had a group called Return to Forever, and everyone in the group became a superstar. I would really like to work with him.

There used to be a certain condescension to Mozart. His music was regarded as pleasant. He was a porcelain figure playing a porcelain harpsichord.

If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.

It's always difficult to define what jazz is or what jazz isn't. To me, the only definition that I can think of is it's music where a lot of different elements are played at the same time. The harmonic, the melodic... You're pushing the boundaries on every level. That could be true of rhythm and blues as well. I'm a musician.

Well, actually, I don't consider myself a jazz legend or anything.

People like Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, you look at them playing music, and it's just like looking at a heavy metal drummer. I mean, they're playing with the same amount of ferocity. It's not to say all jazz is like that.

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.