Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"I'm gay, it’s all a big scam. My kids don't even know who their mother is." - Harry Connick, Jr.

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Michael Buble Quotes

"I think that—and I believe very strongly about this—but I know that if I concentrate, and I work hard, I know that I can take this world on, two women at a time." - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"I've been singing this crap since I was 16!" - Michael Buble

Benny Carter Quotes

"I took the eye test and passed it on the spot. Then, when he asked me to sign something, I pulled out my reading glasses." - Benny Carter

Art Pepper Quotes

"If I have a drink, she [Art's wife, Laurie Pepper] can tell immediately, She'll be sitting at a table or something ... this happened just recently in this club; she was sitting with these friends of mine, I started playing a tune, and all of a sudden she turned round, looked at me, looked back at them and said: "Art's been drinking." And they didn't hear anything different at all than the first set. I played a couple of notes, and she knew. She went up to the bar, asked for the tab, and she saw that I'd had two drinks." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"What has been America's most nurturing contribution to the culture of this planet so far? Many would say jazz. I, who love jazz, will say this instead: Alcoholics Anonymous." - Kurt Vonnegut

source: War Preparers' Anonymous, Essay in The Nation (January 7, 1984)

Wes Montgomery Quotes

"I don't know whether it was his [Charlie Christian's] melodic lines, his sound or his approach, but I hadn't heard anything like that before. He sounded so good and it sounded so easy, so I bought me a guitar and an amplifier and said now I can't do nothing but play! Really, welding was my talent, I think, but I sort of swished it aside." - Wes Montgomery

Barney Kessel Quotes

"When I joined the [Oscar Peterson] Trio, it was as if I was capable of driving a sports car at 60, but Ray Brown and Oscar Peterson just kept pressing the pedal down, and I was trying to control the car at 80!" - Barney Kessel

Augusten Burroughs Quotes

"The Schnauzer listens to jazz. I listen to jazz because he likes it, and I have even gone to jazz concerts with him, but truthfully I would rather listen to retarded children pounding on pan lids with wooden spoons." — Augusten Burroughs

source: Magical Thinking: True Stories

Miles Davis Quotes

"Philly Joe [Jones] was a bitch. If he'd been a lawyer and white, he would have been president of the United States, because in order to get there you gotta talk fast and carry a lot of bullshit with you; Philly had it all and a lot to spare." - Miles Davis

Miles Davis Quotes

"I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it." — Miles Davis

Benny Goodman Quotes

"I don’t really stay that much in touch with it. All I’ll say is that I can’t imagine someone forty years from now reminiscing fondly about having heard Blondie, or even the Rolling Stones, or—what was the name of that group the other day—Clash. What could they say about it? “Remember the volume, the flickering lights? Remember when we got high?” I kind of doubt it." - Benny Goodman

source: Interview with American Heritage Magazine (Oct/Nov, 1981)

Artie Shaw Quotes

"I pride myself as a semi-schizophrenic. I'm trying to understand the universe. There is no sense in the real world. I try to inject a bit of rationality in this wide-range of irrationality. So what am I doing? Criticizing the hell out of everything!"

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.

Artie Shaw Quotes

"People ask what those women saw in me. Let's face it, I wasn't a bad-looking stud. But that's not it. It's the music; it's standing up there under the lights. A lot of women just flip; looks have nothing to do with it. You call Mick Jagger good-looking?" - Artie Shaw

source: Interview with New York Times, 1994.

Howlin' Wolf Quotes

"I wasn't interested in nothin' else but the blues, you know. Course now I ain't gon' pour no water on somebody else 'cause he like jazz, how-high-is-the-moon and who-bop-a-dop, that's his business." - Howlin' Wolf

Louis Armstrong Quotes

"If you decide to walk into the schools with the little colored kids, take me along, Daddy." - Louis Armstrong (wired message to President Eisenhower, regarding Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957)

source: NY Times (published: September 23, 2007)

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

Miles Davis Quotes

"I would never try and play like Harry James, because I don't like his tone — for me. It's just white. You know what I mean? He has what we black trumpet players call a white sound. But it's for white music ... I can tell a white trumpet player, just listening to a record. There'll be something he'll do that'll let me know that he's white." - Miles Davis

source: Interview with Les Tomkins, 1969

Lou Reed Quotes

"If it has more than three chords, it's jazz." - Lou Reed (of 'Velvet Underground')

Isadora Duncan Quotes

"It seems to me monstrous that anyone should believe that the jazz rhythm expresses America. Jazz rhythm expresses the primitive savage." - Isadora Duncan