Jazz Vocabulary Quotes

Even though the music I make gathers influences from all over the place, I feel that the core of what I do comes from the jazz tradition. In terms of improvisation, interaction, feel and overall concept, Jazz is my main source of information and inspiration.

I wouldn't really call myself a Jazz singer I think it's offending to real Jazz singers to call me a Jazz singer.

I once tried to sing jazz for real. But jazz didn't do it for me. You can't have jazz without a jazz world, which doesn't exist anymore.

I listen to anything anyone gives me. I always go back to a few basic favorites. I can always listen to Django Reinhardt and hear something I haven't heard before. I like to listen to Art Tatum and Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Those are guys who never seem to run out of ideas.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

This is what really makes real jazz musicians: people coming out with their own voice.

I learned my phrasing from Frank. I loved him so much.

The starting point of all great jazz has got to be format, a language that you can work within that, in some ways, is much tighter than the blues or even gospel. It's all working towards the same destination - the difference being that Miles Davis flew there, and I'm still taking the subway.

They always want to sell me as a hard bopper.

In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

I consider myself a jazz singer. I think I stick to the roots of improvisation, singing in front of the beat, behind the beat, playing with notes and harmonies.

There's a certain phraseology involved in jazz, and I've moved away from that.

I studied and sang lot of jazz when I was growing up. I think that plays a little bit into some of the things I do vocally, notes that I pick in chords.

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.

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.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

You have to go out and learn jazz by playing.

You can start from any source material, and you can approach it with a jazz ear, and then it will become a jazz moment.