Madeleine Peyroux Quotes

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.

It's sort of what jazz would be if it stopped being snobby and what rock would be if it stopped being stupid.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music.

Jazz is an octopus. It will take whatever it can use and it will work with it.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.

The wonderful thing about Jazz is its willingness to take chances.

I just go with the flow, so any style can be in my music - that makes it exciting.

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

Music is my only guide. I don't care if people pigeonhole me. Miles Davis is my hero. He covered Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson, and he didn't give a hoot about what the purists said.

My music is jazz.

In terms of music, I can try anything I want, even something that doesn't work at all, because I'm not putting my career in jeopardy.

I've never played it safe on my own music.

To break R&B into subcategories does a disservice to the music. I like to live in a zone where I can do whatever I want, where I don't have to worry about genre.

I love singing jazz. I don't like the idea that classical music should be over here and jazz should be someplace else. It's all wonderful, and we should be open to enjoying it all.

What makes bebop legitimate is the fact that when it was done, it was illegitimate.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

I'm a fan of Jerome Kern and Gershwin. That's my kind of music.

All the blues greats took chances and developed their own style. They didn't copy.

Being an American musician means being adventurous.

What I do isn't black music; it's just my music.

I'm a huge stadium rock fan, but I'm also a fan of everything from Massive Attack to Peter Gabriel, U2, the Police, Radiohead, and Coldplay. I've realized that I love all forms of music and get excited when any artist goes crazy and creates something that is an experience.

I associate creativity with independent music.

Once you free your mind about a concept of music and harmony being correct, you can do whatever you want.