"Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own."
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Quote collection
Sonny Rollins quotes (page 2 of 3)
48 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I enjoy playing clubs. I still enjoy the closeness of the nightclub venue. However, after a certain period of time and after playing around some of the clubs in New YorkI felt that jazz should be presented in a more prestigious atmosphere."
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"But if I didn't have to make money, I would still play my horn."
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"I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not."
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"My mother came from St. Thomas. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune."
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"We have to make ourselves as perfect as we can."
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"You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives."
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"I think the problem starts with the general appreciation of the music in the larger society."
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"There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time."
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"Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there."
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"I have seen great jazz musicians die obscure and drinking themselves to death and not really being able to get any work and working in small, funky jazz clubs."
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"Jazz has an audience all around the globe and has had for many decades, I think speaking of the United States, let's say that what we need is more of an official recognition."
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"Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing."
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"I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?"
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"Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music."
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"I guess I'm fortunate that I'm still around and I emphasize 'I guess', because you never can tell what musicians would be playing had they been around as long as I have."
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"What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years."
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"I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That's what I worry about more than I worry about jazz."
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"Jazz is an endless source of ideas, because you can use anything. You can play operatic arias. You can incorporate them into jazz. You can play gypsy music and incorporate it into jazz. You can European classical and you can incorporate it into jazz. You can use anything and jazz it up, as they used to say."
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"I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that."
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