Quotes about Jazz

I just watched Sonny's face. His face was troubled, he was working hard, but he wasn't with it. And I had the feeling that, in a way, everyone on the bandstand was waiting for him, both waiting for him and pushing him along. But as I began to watch Creole, I realized that it was Creole who held them all back. He had them on a short rein. Up there, keeping the beat with his whole body, wailing on the fiddle, with his eyes half closed, he was listening to everything, but he was listening to Sonny. He was having a dialogue with Sonny. He wanted Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water. He was Sonny's witness that deep water and drowning are not the same thing - he had been there, and he knew. He wanted Sonny to know. He was waiting for Sonny to do the things on the keys which would let Creole know that Sonny was in the water.

Here’s a guy and everyboy’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody else’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. All of a sudden somwhere in the middle of the chorus he gets IT- everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries. Time stops. He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul-exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows its not the tune that counts but IT

Interview, 26-June-2000, with Daniel Jaffé . . . a writer and Reviews Editor for Classic CD, the British classical music magazine. . . . what is remarkable, though, is that he not only suggested that jazz was a worthwhile form of music to study, but he also praised authentic American jazz . . . . . . the implications of Prokofiev's enthusiasm for jazz . . . The strange colours of the so-called 'American' Overture, for instance, with its honky-tonk piano sound and predominant brass and woodwind colours sounds to me like a "take" on the sound of a jazz combo, though not using its rhythmic style. Jazzy harmonies unmistakably appear in Romeo and Juliet and in his so-called "War" sonatas. Basically it's a . . . subtle and subliminal influence. . Prokofiev took opportunities to hear jazz during his many tours through the States - certainly he brought plenty of jazz records back to Russia.

Reply when asked, "What is jazz." Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know.

I have discovered three things which have no geographical borders-classical music, American jazz and applause as the sign of the public's favor.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.

The chief trouble with jazz is that there is not enough of it; some of it we have to listen to twice.

THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. We real cool. We Left School. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin Gin. We Jazz June. We Die Soon.