Earnest Richard Kroeger Quotes

I love music, I love all kinds of music, particularly jazz. Jazz is an extension of America. There's no other country in the world that could have produced jazz.

Jazz music is the American's music of choice. This is that music that the Negroes invented to satisfy their primitive inclinations, as well as their desire to be noisy.

I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it.

It seems to me monstrous that anyone should believe that the jazz rhythm expresses America. Jazz rhythm expresses the primitive savage.

I'm not suggesting our music is the only music, but I am suggesting that there are certain elements in America's culture that are so precious that it would be a shame for them to go down the drain.

Music has an intrinsic value that touches Americans - they love their music, and want more.

Let the blare of Negro jazz bands and the bellowing voice of Bessie Smith sinking Blues penetrate the closed ears of the colored near-intellectuals until they listen and perhaps understand.

A nation creates music. The composer only arranges it.

Jazz is the American’s preferred music, and it is created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires ...

I guess, for better or for worse, I am an American composer, and I've had a wonderful life being exactly that.

Truth of the matter is, jazz is American music. And that doesn't mean bebop. Jazz is really about improvising. All the music that's been created in America has been pretty much improvised... Whether it's hillbilly or rock n' roll for blues, it's basically jazz music... It's basically about another way of hearing what comes out of America.

Puerto Rico's relationship with music is everything. It's an island full of talent and if you grow up there, you grow up living and breathing music.

Country is and always will be my heart, but I don't have a problem with it spilling over into pop if it wants to.

Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing.

Nobody else in the world has a form like the Native American musical, and Americans should be very proud.

Aaron Copland was a man that had a very specific point of view about what music should be which was that, he felt that new music should have the composer should show a personality in his music.

Queen Victoria did not regard art, letters, or music as in any way springing from national character: they were something quite apart, elegant decorations resembling a scarf or a bracelet, and in no way expressive of the soul of the country.

Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music.

The music is just so rich and part of the culture there. I suddenly felt like I needed to go on this mission to make sure we save New Orleans because - not that I can save anything - but it's so much part of what this country is, this whole mix of people coming together and doing this thing.

Singing seems to be inherent in Filipino, just as it is in my race. That's why I have this affinity with Filipinos.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.

I used to think that music was like lace upon a garment, nice to have but not necessary. I have come to believe that music is absolutely essential to our community life.

I know that people think of me in terms of Latin music and that's wonderful, that's my heritage, that's who I am, but there's so much more to me and my music.