Jazz Quotes

Music is a fluid art form that picks up echoes of the past and weaves them into a new sound. The distinct sounds of the past merge together to create what we know today as gospel, western, folk, or jazz.

Ryan Lewis

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.

Paul Whiteman

Jazz is a music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.

Johnny Griffin

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

Henri Matisse

There are wonderful things in real jazz, the talent for improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.

Henri Matisse

[Jazz singing] is like pornography. You can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it.

Kurt Elling

I don't have a definition of jazz... You're just supposed to know it when you hear it.

Thelonious Monk

Boxing is like jazz, the better it is, the less people appreciate it.

George Foreman

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.

Carmen McRae

Jazz washes away the dust of every day life.

Art Blakey

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age

Paul Whiteman

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

Duke Ellington

Jazz is the music of the body

Anais Nin

The jazz band can be used for artificial excitement and aphrodisiac purposes, but not for spreading eternal truths.

Bliss, SirArthur

Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.

Duke Ellington