Carla Bley Quotes

I think jazz is a wonderful learning tool.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

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.

So the whole basis for jazz music is based on the fact that the bass player could not play his instrument.

If the whole idea, in the original bebop days, was to get to soloing, then that's all it should be about.

I'm a pianist - I studied jazz piano in college.

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.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

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.

In jazz, there is a lot of European influence harmonically.

As far as other instrumentalists, I used to love mellow sax players like Paul Desmond. I love piano.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

I never studied jazz technically; I just know and love the music.

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

I think that the jazzy approach that I have is based on the way that I hear music and in the way I play a supporting role to the other people in the band.

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

When I present the Charlie Parker book, I do a call and response that works quite well. With the Thelonious Monk book, I play the music and work with kids in a group to create a color wheel and show how the wheel can be mapped on a 12-tone chromatic scale.

And I used to listen to a lot of jazz.

Jazz is very much a part of my life. I work with the Thelonious Monk Institute and do the artwork for their program every year.

I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close.

I really enjoy listening to players on the cusp of swing into bebop like Charlie Shavers, Clifford Brown and Clark Terry. They balance immense facility on their instrument with rhythm, melody, and more complex harmonies of the time.

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

Jazz is a hard music, and you have to really work hard and also have fun performing; that's the most important thing.