Top 25 Jazz Musician Quotes

I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It’s not like I’m cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.

There’s a whole stereotype of the jazz musician that’s into poetry and reading and metaphysics and all that stuff. Really, it’s a sign of someone who’s searching, whose mind is open, looking for answers. Whatever ideas you may come up with, the beautiful thing is the search.

I went to jazz school. Not to say I’m a great jazz musician, but I studied under some great teachers. It was an important part of my life.

You know, it’s funny… when you’re making money, people don’t think you’re playing jazz. Now when you’re not making money, people think that you’re a good jazz musician.

I started as a musician. I play the saxophone, but from the age of 17, I realised that it’s very hard to make a living as a jazz musician in Australia. So I went for an audition and got an acting job and, fortunately, I completely fell in love with that.

I’m a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.

Well, being a jazz musician is not a rose garden!

I don’t think I’ve ever been true to jazz. There’s always a kind of jazz element to what I do. There are a very few genres that I haven’t tried out, really, in what I’ve been doing. As a jazz musician, you can kind of mess about with things with a certain level of musicianship, which helps.

Man, I just feel so fortunate to be a jazz musician at all. I have a hard time thinking of it any other way. It’s such a fulfilling vocation. I love it.

The worst thing about the life of a jazz musician on the road is getting to the gig. Once you’re there and playing, it’s marvelous.

I always tell people that, just to be a bad jazz musician, you have to be better than most musicians. The worst jazz musicians are normally better than most musicians, because you have to know so much.

The musicians in Chicago gave me my vocation, but New York calls to a jazz musician, for sure. You want to test your mettle.

My grandad was an opera singer, my uncle a jazz musician; I was a boy soprano in the church choir. But the first performance with Deep Purple was something I’ll never forget. All elements were working brilliantly.

That’s what I tell my students at California Institute of the Arts where I taught for 27 years. I taught them if you strive to be a good person, maybe you might become a great jazz musician.

Some people are born with a brain that has this weird, magical mathematical thing that makes them an amazing jazz musician.

Being jazz-trained, things happen spontaneously. Even though it’s funk rock, we still have the instincts of a jazz musician.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

My secret dream has always been to be a jazz musician. I tried the saxophone for a year or two when I was younger, but unfortunately I had to face the fact that I was not really talented!

I’m a jazz musician in that I have achieved Grade 3 on the French horn.

It is rare that even a jazz musician finds an individual voice.

I really love jazz, but I will never be a jazz musician as much as I dream. But, I think that the jazz music I love is there in my music.

I don’t want to be defined solely by what I do as a jazz musician at a club or a festival. That’s not all of me. It’s not even close.

What makes jazz different is that you can’t predict it, it’s all about freedom. Just when you think you know what you’re going to hear there’ll be a left turn, a jazz musician will change it up.

My aunt Ruth Brown was a jazz musician. I got hooked on it at a young age, understanding what John Coltrane was doing playing two notes on the saxophone at the same time, which is impossible.

I started as a jazz musician, not a singer, then I became a rock ‘n’ roll artist with Aphrodite’s Child.