It's funny to find there are still people around who think if a musician has schooling, it automatically makes him a lesser jazz player. But you don't learn jazz in school.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians.
Jazz is a way of life, and you have to learn about it on the street, so to speak. But the training comes in by giving you the tools to work with.
Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.
I never studied jazz technically; I just know and love the music.
Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.
You have to go out and learn jazz by playing.
I'm not saying that in order to be a great jazz musician you have to be a great classical pianist first. But I am saying that it makes things easier when you can get around the instrument, and you have some idea of how to approach the various hurdles.
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.
In my view a jazz musician is a great musician.
Jazz is a hard music, and you have to really work hard and also have fun performing; that's the most important thing.
No opposing quotes found.