I haven't a great jazz band, and I don't want one.
I used to sing with my father's jazz band and then when I was ten years old a musician friend of his suggested that I try out for the first west coast production of Annie.
I suppose subconsciously I was thinking in terms of having the scale of it matching the scale of the images. Hence the sort of string quartet, jazz band and electronic stuff.
Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones.
It's true I've always been attracted to the jazz band in an orchestral way, rather than a band way.
Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.
I guess certain kinds of jazz music could be Crunk. But the average jazz song, no, it's not Crunk.
Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm.
If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.
It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most.
Listening to the stories told in jazz music and how those artists expressed their truths about the times and what they were dealing with is what struck me the most.
When I read the script and saw the jazz music setting, and when I read the name of the filmmaker was Damien Chazelle, I immediately got this mental image of Antoine Fuqua.
I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It's not like I'm cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.
I'm a jazz musician, and I really wanted to not miss an opportunity to have the full connection to jazz.
I got my love of jazz from my stepfather, who was a jazz musician.
Being jazz-trained, things happen spontaneously. Even though it's funk rock, we still have the instincts of a jazz musician.
I've met a lot of jazz musicians in my day, and they're all funny.
I loved Art Tatum! And, through him, and other different jazz musicians, I actually found my technique.
I'm thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.
Jazz musicians have always taken the standards of their time and performed them with a jazz sensibility.