Dave Van Ronk Quotes

I didn't grow up during the time that Louis Armstrong or Miles Davis and all those people were playing. So it's not really my responsibility to keep it up, what they were doing.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

A lot of young people want to become jazz singers, but there are not more jam sessions like there used to be. I just want to have the opportunity to be able to bring that to some young people.

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

I tell all the rookies that come into our series and all the young drivers they can come ask me anything at any time, and we'll give them the straight shoot.

It's been a joy to be a part of other people's journey, to be able to inspire and be a part of new singers coming up in this business.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to see your music going from generation to generation.

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his life's work.

I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.

Even though I left for a year, I grew here as a Jazz man. If I'm fortunate enough to go into the Hall of Fame, I will go as a Jazz man.

He would catapult you forward, and that was his intention with the Jazz Messengers. He would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.

I don't just come from a musical family, but from a musical community.

We are so indebted to our ancestors, musically speaking, that they have left us 400 years of music.

I played with Eddie Taylor's son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.

Here in New Orleans, what a lot of the musical families do - and this is a romantic concept on my part - is they teach their kids to tap dance first. Then after tap dance, you learn piano, and after piano, you get to pick between all the instruments that are out there.

We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city.

The great thing about Nashville back in the day was that the old guys hung out where the young guys were. The established writers like Harlan Howard and Jack Clement gave us encouragement and passed the guitar, you know? Chet Atkins let me sit in on his sessions. Everybody was good to us, and everybody loved the music.

I have to continue to make the older musicians proud and brush up on my skills.

That's where I get my whole music theory from, my pops and my grandfather.

Los Angeles has always been overlooked as far as jazz, and just high-level music in general. But, like, my dad's a musician, so I've grown up around so many brilliant musicians that nobody outside Los Angeles knows about.

What you have to understand is that blues... it's in a line from the oldest forms of African music. If you're playing it like it's an echo of the past, it would be a lot less exciting, but this music lives today.

There's a thing about film composing and conducting in my family.

All of my experiences as a singer will be of good use long into the future, when I get old enough to finally train others.

In Europe, I do see a lot of women who were fans years ago bring their daughters and sons to shows and that's how my music gets passed down, and I love that.

I feel like we can learn from each other by us, being the young generation, giving knowledge to the older guys.