"Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away." - Quincy Jones
source: 'Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs', a film by Harrison Engle, 1991
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
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)
source: NY Times (published: September 23, 2007)
Louis Armstrong Quotes
"It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country." - Louis Armstrong
source: NY Times (published: September 23, 2007)
source: NY Times (published: September 23, 2007)
Maxim Gorky Quotes
"What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians." - Maxim Gorky
Art Blakey Quotes
"What ever truth drops on it eventually grinds to a powder." - Art Blakey (on the eventual death of racism)
source: KABC-TV interview, 1983.
source: KABC-TV interview, 1983.
Miles Davis Quotes
"If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow." - Miles Davis (During an interview, after growing aggravated about questions on the subject of race.)
Louis Armstrong Quotes
"The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell." - Louis Armstrong
source: New York Times, September 19, 1957
source: New York Times, September 19, 1957
Hugues Panassie Quotes
"The Negro, who had originally been purer and closer to nature than the whites, was continually perverted by them." - Hugues Panassie (French jazz critic of the 1940s), regarding powerful whites in the music industry, and how they dealt with the great black performers of the day.
Randy Sandke Quotes
"Through the dark days of legalized segregation and on into the civil rights era, jazz shone as a beacon for achieving interracial respect and understanding. It seemed as if the dream of a color-blind society was within reach in the jazz world, where musicians were judged on merit and not skin color." - Randy Sandke
Lena Horne Quotes
"You wouldn't be allowed to get on a particular bus, but you'd be asked to sign your autograph." - Lena Horne
Duke Ellington Quotes
"I don't believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A., you are referring to categories again." - Duke Ellington
Clark Terry Quotes
"I don't listen with my eyes... My theory is that a note doesn't give a fuck who plays it, as long as he plays it well." - Clark Terry
Billy Eckstine Quotes
"Oh, Eckstine, he's a black singer. Not Peggy Lee, she's a Slav singer, or Barbra Streisand, she's a Jewish singer. You don't get that. When we first started on records, you didn't even get a ballad, you sang blues ... The white critics are blues freaks, they'll go into days of research on Huddie Ledbetter, and we black people - I don't remember going across the street to hear Huddie Ledbetter." - Billy Eckstine
Nat King Cole Quotes
"I was a guinea pig for some hoodlums who thought they could hurt me and frighten me and keep other Negro entertainers from the South." - Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole Quotes
"It's not the people in the South who create racial problems - it's the people who are governing." - Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole Quotes
"I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers." - Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole Quotes
"I'm proud of our court. It knocks back a lot of the propaganda the Communists put out about the way America treats her Negroes." - Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole Quotes
"I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen." - Nat King Cole
Ornette Coleman Quotes
"You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes." - Ornette Coleman
