Modal Jazz Quotes

I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music.

There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.

See, we started out with a foundation of blues. But then we added people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane to the mix and gave rock n' roll a much more complex structure. It made it possible to play more than three chords.

Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

Jazz to me is a living music.

Jazz is a big thing with me. It's a very big passion of mine, to play it. I'm an amateur musician and I love everything about it. I was obsessed with jazz when I was 15 years old and I know a lot about it because I've loved it so much.

I love jazz. So to me, there are two main types of jazz. There's dancing jazz, and then there's listening jazz. Listening jazz is like Thelonius Monk or John Coltrane, where it's a listening experience. So that's what I like; I like to make stuff that you listen to. It's not really meant to get you up; it's meant to get your mind focused. That's why you sit and listen to jazz. You dance to big band or whatever, but for the most part, you sit and listen to jazz. I think it comes from that aesthetic, trying to take that jazz listening experience and put it on hip-hop.

So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It's over; it's on the record.

Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.

My playing started to develop through the Miles Davis stuff I was listening to.

Coltrane was moving out of jazz into something else. And certainly Miles Davis was doing the same thing.

Miles Davis is my go-to for music. There's something so relaxing and ambient about it, and it can be a little manic in a good way.

My musical influences are from the '50s: Bill Evans, Miles Davis and Ahmad Jamal.

I really like the complexity of jazz, the emotional depth; I feel like there's no other music that's really as satisfying as jazz.

I had the fortunate experience to play with people from different schools of music. Sam Rivers is from the fundamentalist school of music.

It's called 'Miles Davis, Prince of Darkness,' and it's about Miles Davis, the genius, and why he was the way he was, and how he changed music so many times. He changed music six times. So, I'm excited about that movie.

All John Coltrane's records are amazing.

'Kind of Blue' is one of the best records of all time. Miles' use of space is something rap fans can definitely appreciate. Sometimes you have to let the track breathe and throw a melody in here and there. He never did too much on 'Kind of Blue.' It's the perfect vibe.