Michael Buble Quotes

"It's scary. You go out there and your knees are shaking and you try to hold onto the microphone and not look like your hands are shaking. And at some point I just settle in and think to myself, how wonderful is this?" - Michael Buble

Michael Max Fleming Quotes

I came to New York City in 1963, and the place was really jumping. I worked at the Five Spot with Rahsaan. That’s when they would book two bands playing together for four-week stints. I played with Rahsaan opposite Sonny Rollins. There was a lot of great music in the city then. I didn’t come here to be famous, I came here to play with famous people. There was a time in New York when you could play six days a week, every week of the year. I feel sorry for the younger musicians now, because there’s something to be said about playing every day in front of an audience." - Michael Max Fleming

source: Interview with the New York Times (June 23, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"When I was in high school I made the discovery that if I was playing in a jazz club, and there were black people in the club, if I could get the black people to like what I was doing, I was on the right track. So I began to play to those people because they knew what the authentic music was. I've always had that in the back of my head." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Don Alias Quotes

"If they [the crowd at The Apollo Theater] don't like you, they will let you know. When you didn't have any talent, they would let you know about it -- and not kindly. There'd be things like "Get off the stage!" and certain expletives we won't say here. It was a rough audience." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Jack Kerouac Quotes

"... and up on the stand [Charlie] Bird Parker with solemn eyes who'd been busted fairly recently and had now returned to a kind of bop dead Frisco but had just discovered or been told about the Red Drum, the great new generation gang wailing and gathering there, so here he was on the stand, examinign them with his eyes as he blew his now-settled-down-into-regulated-design "crazy" notes ... whom I saw distinctly digging Mardou several times also myself directly into my eye looking to search if really I was that great writer I thought myself to be as if he knew my thoughts and ambitions or remembered me from other night clubs and other coasts, other Chicagos - not a challenging look but the king and founder of the bop generation at least the sound of it in digging his audience digging the eyes, the secret eyes him-watching, as he just pursed his lips and let great lungs and immortal fingers work, his eyes separate and interested and humane, the kindest jazz musician there could be while being and therefore naturally the greatest - watching Marldou and me in the infancy of our love and probably wondering why, or knowing it wouldn't last, or seeing who it was would be hurt..." - Jack Kerouac

source: The Subterraneans (by Jack Kerouac)

George Benson Quotes

"People who love jazz musicians love us when we play what we want to play and we're starving. But as soon as you commercialize your sound like Wes Montgomery did, the jazz fans and the critics are down on you!" - George Benson

Kenny Burrell Quotes

"My audience has developed so that they come to listen and are quiet, Thus I can work in a limited volume range and explore all the subtleties that can happen, which is my favorite part of the music." - Kenny Burrell

Artie Shaw Quotes

"I'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I'm not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks." - Artie Shaw

source: Artie Shaw's commencement speech entitled 'Three Chords For Beauty And One To Pay The Rent', given to the graduates at California Lutheran University, 1987.

Ben Webster Quotes

"I like to play things that people understand, or maybe tunes that they could recognize. And so — I play for the people, just as much as for myself. Because, as I say, I still like to play." - Ben Webster

source: Interview with Les Tomkins, 1965.

Miles Davis Quotes

"Audiences — they like colour, you know. I can go out there wearing a red suit, man, and they'll say I'm out of sight ... I think they should be educated; you should always drop something on an audience ... When you get in front of an audience, you should try to give 'em something. After all, they're there looking at you like this. You can't go out and give 'em nothing." - Miles Davis

source: Interview with Les Tomkins, 1969

Miles Davis Quotes

"I mean, it makes me sick when I see a white man sitting there smiling at me being entertaining, man. When I know what he's gonna do after he gets through. You know, when you see that thing on their face — like: "Entertain me." You know what I mean? Even the black guy that's trying to be white — even he can have that crap on his face." - Miles Davis

source: Interview with Les Tomkins, 1969

Johnny St. Cyr Quotes

"The more enthusiastic his audience is, why, the more spirit the working man's got to play." - Johnny St. Cyr

source: 'Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It' (Nat Shapiro, First published 1966)

Louis Armstrong Quotes

"The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn." - Louis Armstrong

source: Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954)

Roy Ayers Quotes

"I couldn't get my album played over the so-called smooth jazz stations. Jazz stations would not play it. You don't always know who you're making that soul connection with." - Roy Ayers

Bill Bruford Quotes

"I have been steadily exchanging a rock audience who were nervous about what they had just bought for a jazz audience who not only were happy with their purchase, but are increasingly coming again." - Bill Bruford

Wynton Marsalis Quotes

People have taken time out of their day and spent their money to come sit down at a concert. And it's jazz music - it's not easy for them to get to it. I don't want them ever to feel that I'm taking their presence lightly." - Wynton Marsalis

David Amram Quotes

"In a jazz atmosphere, the audience members were so quiet and respectful of the musicians that you felt you were almost part of a meeting at a church or a temple, where everyone was completely in tune with the sermon and what the whole event was about." - David Amram

Lena Horne Quotes

"I found out along the way that they like you a little imperfect." - Lena Horne

Charles Mingus Quotes

"Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don’t care what you play anyway." - Charles Mingus

Ornette Coleman Quotes

"I would like to play for audiences who are not using my music to stimulate their sex organs." - Ornette Coleman