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"I was exposed to jazz early on."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences."
Author Name
Personal Development
"For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind."
Author Name
Personal Development
"I'm not going to play funk licks on a jazz album. That makes no sense."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The blues is the foundation, and it's got to carry the top. The other part of the scene, the rock 'n' roll and the jazz, are the walls of the blues."
Author Name
Personal Development
"It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore."
Author Name
Personal Development
"And I used to listen to a lot of jazz."
Author Name
Personal Development
"The iconoclastic mode, that specific mode of language, there is an element of it that it is punk - that is confrontational. That's just a part of the language of jazz - at a certain point."
Author Name
Personal Development
"All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues."
Author Name
Personal Development
"My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden."
Author Name
Personal Development
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"Any time I need to get a serious attitude adjustment, I put on one of their records, and there are examples there for all time to keep us honest and keep us reaching; they'll never be eclipsed."
Time
"Just to have that sense of family, it gives you something that you know you need to take care of for the rest of your life. People gave it to him, and he passed it on to us."
Family
"Like Russell, I enjoy the fact that when I'm playing solo, if I want to do something completely spontaneous, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to cue the other musicians, or if it's something that's rehearsed."
Fact
"I have similar feelings, actually. The intimacy of a club: you can see the people, you can almost feel them; you can't beat that. People will say things, and shout out, it's almost like they're up on the bandstand with you."
People
"He would catapult you forward, and that was his intention with the Jazz Messengers. He would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer."
People
"Prior to that, I had associated this music with older people, like my father."
Music
"I think there's a natural chemistry between us as friends; and there's really no separation between the rapport that we feel when we're in conversation and when we're playing music, it's one in the same."
Music
"No, that's not it. The first time we met was at Fat Tuesday's. Benny was playing, this was, I think in 1989?"
Time
"I'm naturally going to react to that and he'll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I'm relating what he's playing."
Character
"Just to be around that, to feel a part of it and be able to integrate the experience while I was with the Messengers, of going and playing gigs with other drummers, gave me the chance to realize that it was not just me that was making it happen."
Experience
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