Cassandra Wilson Quotes

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.

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

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 ...

You can't seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues - you can't seperate it. Because that's where it all started, and that's where it all come from - that's where I learned to keep rhythm - in church.

I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about black music, about soul music.

People are going to wake up to this great reservoir of music we've created in America - cakewalks, one-steps, boogie-woogie, country and western. I had a bit to do with one of those traditions.

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

I believe that blues and jazz are the two uniquely American contributions into music.

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.

Jazz is really 20th-century fusion music. You take West African harmony and rhythm, mix with European harmony, and boom!

My dad was a huge big band and jazz fan, and we both sort of enjoyed be-bop, but man, it required so much skill to play it. And then there was cool jazz, the era that Miles, Coltrane, and Ornette ushered in, and that found a home in me. It turns out that that music was just really where I breathed.

I listened to King Oliver and I listened to Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp... I listened to everything I could that came from that place that they call the blues but, in formality, isn't necessarily the blues.

Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.

What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.

It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.

Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.

I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.

As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices.

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.

Jazz was the pop music of its day, and all American popular music has stemmed from it one way or another.

Jazz, and the history of jazz, is the history of America.

Jazz is a part of me.

Jazz to me is a living music.

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians.