Cy Coleman Quotes

I listen to jazz mainly. Mainstream jazz.

I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.

I've met a lot of jazz musicians in my day, and they're all funny.

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

What I'm doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word - I love it.

I listened to classical music. I listened to jazz. I listened to everything. And I started becoming interested in the sounds of jazz. And I went to a concert of Jazz at the Philharmonic when we lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and I saw Charlie Parker play and Billie Holiday sing and Lester Young play, and that did it. I said, 'That's what I want to do.'

I wanted to be a jazz musician.

My foundation is jazz. I do all the things jazz musicians do.

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

I think I represent a more left-wing view of what jazz is.

I've been invited to do a trio with a fantastic jazz guitarist and a harmonica player.

If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.

I think Wes Montgomery is the greatest jazz guitarist that ever lived.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

So our ears got used to listening to jazz in the place that it was that the bass player could not play. No one really realized it and really addressed it until the bass players who could play their instrument came along and started doing something with it.

The first thing is, jazz is one of the few things to let you know that there is a God and there is a creation.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

After I exhausted the blues thing, I got into jazz.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.

Coltrane would do what you'd get a Roland Pro Tools module to do but with a group of jazz musicians.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?

People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before.