JAZZ!!! Jazz Quotes for Your Inspiration!

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Jazz Quotes from all the Jazz greats: Miles Davis quotes, Joe Pass quotes, Charlie Parker quotes, Duke Ellington quotes, Bill Evans quotes, John Coltrane quotes, Dizzy Gillespie quotes, Mike Stern quotes, John Scofield quotes, Oscar Hammerstein quotes, and more to come!

This is the first quotes collection in the all new Music Quotes section at Guitar-Theory-in-Depth.com. Watch out for all of what's coming by subscribing to our RSS feed!!!

Miles Davis Quotes

"Without music, life would be a mistake"
-Miles Davis

"Don't fear mistakes: there are none..."
-Miles Davis

"For me, music and life are all about style."
-Miles Davis

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there"
-Miles Davis

"A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it!"
-Miles Davis

"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself..."
-Miles Davis

"There are no wrong notes."
-Miles Davis

"It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's there and I don't question it!"
-Miles Davis

"When you are creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain't the limit."
-Miles Davis

Joe Pass Quotes

"If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterwards."
- Joe Pass

Charlie Parker Quotes

"Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you."
-Charlie Parker

"You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
-Charlie Parker

"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art..."
-Charlie Parker

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Duke Ellington Quotes

"There is no art when one does something without intention."
-Duke Ellington

"I like any and all of my associations with music -writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky."
-Duke Ellington

"It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)."
-Duke Ellington

"Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone."
-Duke Ellington

"There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone."
-Duke Ellington

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it."
-Duke Ellington

"My biggest kick in music -playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything?"
-Duke Ellington

"Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did."
-Duke Ellington

Bill Evans Quotes

"As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time."
-Bill Evans

"I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it."
-Bill Evans

"Jazz isn't a what, it's a how."
-Bill Evans

"I always like people who have developed long and hard, particularly through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think that what they arrive at is, usually, deeper and more beautiful than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.
I say this because it's a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to. You hear musicians playing with great fluidity and complete conception early on, and you don't have that ability. I didn't. I had to know what I was doing. And ultimately it turned out that these people weren't able to carry their thing very far. I found myself being more attracted to artists who have developed through the years and become better and deeper musicians.
I believe in things that are developed through hard work."
-Bill Evans

"Music should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. It's easy to rediscover part of yourself, but through art you can be shown part of yourself you never knew existed. That's the real mission of art. The artist has to find something within himself that's universal and which he can put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate to a person without his realizing it... enrichment, that's the function of music."
-Bill Evans

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