jazz (& scrap) pages

Nov 19

“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.”

Billie Holiday

Jun 5

“I’m into scales right now…”

John Coltrane

Mar 26

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”

Thelonious Monk

Mar 8

“It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.”

Ella Fitzgerald

Mar 5

“A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbours. He’s above all a human being … the true artform is being a human being.” Herbie Hancock

Dec 13

“Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.”

Johnny Griffin

Johhny Griffin

Dec 6

“Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.”

Dizzy Gillespie

Nov 30

“I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat.”

Wes Montgomery

Sep 15

“Chan Parker: Dizzy sent you a birthday card. Seems he’s back in town. Do you owe him a phone call?
Charlie Parker: I owe Dizzy everything…except a phone call.” From the motion picture ‘Bird’

May 27

“Musically, Art was very punctual. But with gigs, we were never really on time. One time we were scheduled to play in Philadelphia. We all pulled up in front of the club, and I saw a sign in the window that said: ‘Yusef Lateef’. It turned out we were a month early for the gig. We still weren’t on time.” Chuck Mangione on Art Blakey (& The Jazz Messengers)

May 25

“Well, if I could play like Wynton (Marsalis), I wouldn’t play like Wynton.” Chet Baker

Mar 24

Miles Davis, by de Koenigswarter

Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the muse and patron of the American jazz world (as seen in the rare documentary I posted earlier) was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, evidenced in an enthralling collection of candid Polaroid snapshots.

She also collected wishes. Over the course of a decade, Koenigswarter asked three hundred musicians what their three wishes in life were, jotting them all down in a notebook.

The three wishes of Miles Davis:
1. ‘To be white!’

And that was it.

Feb 21

Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley, by de Koenigswarter

Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the muse and patron of the American jazz world (as seen in the rare documentary I posted earlier) was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, evidenced in an enthralling collection of candid Polaroid snapshots.

She also collected wishes. Over the course of a decade, Koenigswarter asked three hundred musicians what their three wishes in life were, jotting them all down in a notebook.

The three wishes of Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley:
1. ‘I wish that racial discrimination would be eliminated from the face of the earth, in all directions.’
2. ‘I wish for some sort of subsidy for the jazz art, so that those truly dedicated artists may create music, let’s say, unscathed or distorted because of social and economic necessity. Only under these circumstances may there exist jazz expression free from bitterness, jealousy, grief, and the put-down syndrome.’
3. ‘I must honestly confess that I would wish for certain various and sundry circumstances indigenous to a healthy and happy home life for my wife and myself.’

P.S. My posts are few and far between due to major renovation of my house. Things will be more varied shortly!

Feb 17

Charlie Rouse and Sonny Clark, by de Koenigswarter

Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the muse and patron of the American jazz world (as seen in the rare documentary I posted earlier) was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, evidenced in an enthralling collection of candid Polaroid snapshots.

She also collected wishes. Over the course of a decade, Koenigswarter asked three hundred musicians what their three wishes in life were, jotting them all down in a notebook.

The three wishes of Charlie Rouse:
1. ‘To be an excellent musician.’
2. ‘To own a jazz club and promote very good jazz.’
3. ‘That America would recognize it’s a true art.’

The three wishes of Sonny Clark:
1. ‘Money.’
2. ‘All the bitches in the world.’
3. ‘All the Steinways.’

Feb 14

“In Japan, where people didn’t speak English very well, he said it bothered him, ‘cause he couldn’t even cuss there.
Miles’s attitude was that if those motherfuckers over in Japan didn’t understand the hip transgression of blasphemy, he had to admit that there wasn’t much point in it.” Wayne Shorter