Yusef Komunyakaa Quotes

I remember seeing McCoy Tyner in concert, and thinking that the music was incredible, but wanting to be invited in. I figured that humor was the way of letting the audience in. I've gotten a hard time about it, but I love to be funny onstage.

If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it's like the human voice.

As far as playing jazz, no other art form, other than conversation, can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction.

New Orleans cats don't play a lot of solos unless they got something to say. It's not an ego thing like it is with some other musicians. You say what you gotta say and then shut up.

The saxophone is actually a translation of the human voice, in my conception. All you can do is play melody. No matter how complicated it gets, it's still a melody.

John Coltrane, he talks to god. He starts playing his solo, he might play for 14 minutes. For 14 minutes, it seems like he's talking to god, but he always takes a hold of the melody.

It’s like a language. You learn the alphabet, which are the scales. You learn sentences, which are the chords. And then you talk extemporaneously with the horn. It’s a wonderful thing to speak extemporaneously, which is something I’ve never gotten the hang of. But musically I love to talk just off the top of my head. And that’s what jazz music is all about.

Charlie Parker is my greatest inspiration as a saxophone player - anything that involves him entails a large amount of respect.

If you're a lay person listening to jazz, you don't necessarily understand everything that's happening within the form. But you get the sense of it, the feel of it, because you're getting to hear something that develops right in front of your face.

Jazz isn't like pop, where you sell millions of records with a hit. Your spirit and soul aren't important in pop music. But jazz is like classical music. If people like you, they'll remember you and you'll last forever.

Jazz is something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

The theory is that you don't play a song the same way twice because it's jazz. That's where I'm coming from.

Jazz is not background music.

Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.

Finally Beiderbecke came out with a silver cornet. He put it to his lips and blew a phrase. The sound came out like a girl saying 'yes'.

They said Bird played bebop, but Bird could still swing. I've heard a lot of guys play bebop, but they wasn't swinging.

Jazz music is the power of now.

Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman.

Among the guitarists, Wes Montgomery is fantastic. He's always good to let you know what the art form is all about. It's the same still life that everybody is painting, but in comes Wes Montgomery, and it's right there!

The reason why the music [jazz] is important is because it's an art form-an ancient art form-that takes in the mythology of our people.

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.

There aren't any labels - all jazz means is improvization and you can never play a tune the same way twice. So jazz spills over into everything.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfill what they feel the moment requires.

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijiana, and will expire on cocaine.