quotations about jazz
Jazz proper ... is a release of all the suppressed emotions at once, a blowing off of the lid, as it were. It is hilarity expressing itself through pandemonium; musical fireworks.
J. A. ROGERS
"Jazz at Home"
The melody got lost, first off. Everything got lost, then, while that horn flew. It wasn't only jazz; it was the heart of jazz, and the insides, pulled out with the roots and held up for everybody to see; it was blues that told the story of all the lonely cats and all the ugly whores who ever lived.
CHARLES BEAUMONT
American Fantastic Tales
Jazz presumes that it would be nice if the four of us--simpatico dudes that we are--while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically, this never quite works out. At best, we can only be free one or two at a time--while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have, and sometimes it works--but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectic, beyond our social concerns.
DAVE HICKEY
Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy
The feeling of jazz is like the feeling you get going into your favorite grandmother's house. You know there's all kind of things in there that you might not recognize, but it's accumulated wisdom.
GEOFFREY C. WARD & KEN BURNS
Jazz: A History of America's Music
Good jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms, and yells. Fine jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra runaround the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.
CHARLES MINGUS
attributed, Aesthetics of Resistance: Charles Mingus and the Civil Rights Movement
Learning jazz is like learning to ride a bicycle or to walk: You gather information, try it out, fall down, take your lumps, learn something and try again.
NOAH BAERMAN
The Big Book of Jazz Piano Improvisation