Musical Arrangements Quotes

I basically was in charge of the Jackson 5 - all their creative, when it came down to the studio, and all their musical endeavors.

Since the big band started I'm just always swamped with movies and things. It certainly pays the bills and it's very satisfying, because I get to write all these big charts and all this crazy music.

I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'

I still love recording and still love the stage, but like my dad, I have the most fun when I am in front of that glorious orchestra or that kick-butt big band.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.

When preparing for a concert, I do lots of training. I work with a choreographer to create great moves and then I have to keep my voice strong with lessons.

I would hear Steely Dan on the radio all the time, and I listened to 'Aja' a lot. I mean, 'Black Cow' and 'Aja' and 'Deacon Blues' and 'Josie' and 'Peg'... all these songs are on one record. It's crazy!

I did Bronislaw Kaper's tune. He wrote "On Green Dolphin Street." I mean, I did all those ballads, all them ballads from South America. All those tunes - the guitar concerto on Sketches Of Spain. All those are Spanish melodies. Some of them we made up ourselves.

For many years, I've always been attached to what they call the Great American Songbook, and Kern was a great leader of that because he had the classical training of Europe. He impressed all the greatest composers, like Cole Porter and Gershwin. They couldn't believe he was writing the songs he was writing.

There is music wherever there is rhythm, as there is life wherever there beats a pulse.

I joined Tommy Dorsey at the Paramount Theater in New York as a singer. I replaced Frank Sinatra.

There was a period after my first solo album came out that about 50 per cent of my work was with symphonies and big bands. We did the Captain and Tennille as well, but it ended up being about 50-50.

I'm not a trained musician. When folks talk about 'Well, you go to this or that' - the tenor, or the third part - I don't really know what they're talking about.

My musical director, Mark Cherry, is the most wonderful person who ever lived on God's good green Earth. He's my director, he does the arrangements. Really, he does everything - including certain janitorial chores!

In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not.

I wouldn't go so far as to make 'You Don't Own Me' a tango or 'It's My Party' a hip-hop thing. Believe me, those things have been suggested to me. But I thought if I could stay true to the song, the arrangements would work. I'm really enjoying singing them.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

There are three different modes: playing piano, just me at the microphone, and me at my effects units. And I can mix those up in different ways.

I was the Specials' founder, main songwriter and keyboard player.

Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness.

I was in show choir in high school.

At one point, some years ago, a nice gentleman had it in mind to do 'Outlander' the musical. His idea was to start with a CD of what you call a song cycle, with a dozen high points of the projected show. It turned out very well, though we had to stop doing it when the TV show came along.

What did we play in the Harry Dean Stanton Band? It was old blues and country - all covers. I never wrote anything.

I'm somebody who grew up listening to a lot of musical theater, so getting to finally write musical theater songs and songs that sound that way - the emphasis being on the storytelling, but the arrangements and the orchestrations can be really varied - I found that to be, actually, a really joyful discovery.