Andy Richter Quotes

If he's a true symphony artist, he knows better than that because he knows that the only truly creative musician is the jazz musician.

I think some people just have an innate musical ability, and I'm lucky enough to be one of those people.

I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.

My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing two notes on the saxophone at the same time, which is impossible.

Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.

Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician.

Mozart was born Mozart. Charlie Parker was born Charlie Parker.

I always leaned toward free jazz... experimental jazz and progressive jazz. I feel like jazz is just part of the flavor and palette that you have as a musician to experiment with.

In essence, I feel I'm more jazz guitar player because I write vehicles geared for improvisation.

There's no denying that Caruso came with a voice?that Beethoven came with music in his soul, Picasso was drawing like an angel in the crib.You're born with it.

I hear many extra-musical things somehow in Coltrane.

The ability to make music is a gift that you're born with; it's not something you can learn.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.

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.

Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.

I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.

Bud Powell's probably the biggest influence on my piano playing.

I think I came across Cecil Taylor a bit later, in 65 or 66. That really impressed me - Cecil Taylor is an amazing character... Both his music and the way he approaches the instrument are astonishing.

I think that people should learn about that. In most music, there's one way that you do something, and that's the only way. In jazz, it's a lot different.

Whenever I open a book about jazz, I turn to the index and look for Lennie Tristano, the incredible pianist; Lee Konitz, the luminous alto sax player; and Warne Marsh, the tenor player who captured some of the most beautiful sounds in the world.

The way jazz works is that we take a theme, and then we write using the same structure, same chord changes, and then we can do different tunes.

I do find modern jazz quite tricky.

In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.