Stan Getz Quotes

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.

When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they're trying to say with jazz. You don't need any prologues, you just play.

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.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

What I love about jazz is the improvisation, the fact that you never know what's going to happen next.

Improvisation is an important part of bluegrass, and I would hasten to add that classical music wasn't always such an improvisational void. Back in the day, everyone's cadenzas were improvised, and improvisation was taught in conservatories.

Jazz is something that's constantly changing. Its sole purpose is to let people improvise, to let them solo differently each time they play. And that's always been what I like best.

If the whole idea, in the original bebop days, was to get to soloing, then that's all it should be about.

I love playing jazz because I love the freedom you have to improvise. It has given me a feeling in my classical repertoire of creating the atmosphere of the here and now.

Jazz is something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

The theory is that you don't play a song the same way twice because it's jazz. That's where I'm coming from.

Jazz music is the power of now.

Jazz is the language of the emotions.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

That's the thing about jazz: it's free flowing, it comes from your soul.

Jazz is letting everybody do his or her thing with the music.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.

The iconoclastic mode, that specific mode of language, there is an element of it that it is punk - that is confrontational. That's just a part of the language of jazz - at a certain point.

In fact, jazz has such a great feeling and great emotional content that it really doesn't require you to have technical understanding of it. I think you just have to allow your feelings to go with the music and you will find yourself carried along by it fairly quickly.

I remember seeing McCoy Tyner in concert, and thinking that the music was incredible, but wanting to be invited in. I figured that humor was the way of letting the audience in. I've gotten a hard time about it, but I love to be funny onstage.

A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.