The Jazz Repertory Company Blog

The Jazz Repertory Company Blog
The Jazz Repertory Company Blog

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Famous Jazz Musicians Give 20 Reasons To "Come See The Show"

The greatest names of jazz history give you 20 reasons to see our concert Jazz In New York Part 2 at Cadogan Hall on January 28th 2017:

#20: To see all that's purple, green and swinging: "I don't care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing."  Miles Davis

#19: To see entertainment pip business sense: "Musically, the bebop route was magnificent, but businesswise, it was the dumbest thing I ever did." Woody Herman

#18: To see if they've learnt how to play it yet: "Bebop is the music of the future (as soon as they learn how to play it)." Dexter Gordon
 

#17: Because we all hanker after yesteryear: "Bebop has set music back twenty years." Tommy Dorsey

#16: To live life on the edge: "Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn't about standing still and being safe." Miles Davis
 

#15: Because of Enrico Tomasso's Swingtette:
  
#14: To surrender to the dark side: "I don't know where Jazz is going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens." Thelonious Monk

#13: To get a fix during Dry-January: "Jazz is like wine. When it is new it's only for the experts, but when it gets older everybody wants it."  Steve Lacy

#12: For an evening of the utmost sincerity: "As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz." Lee Konitz

#11: For a foot tapping good time: "They're not particular whether you're playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance." Dizzy Gillespie

#10: To help us keep the band together: "To keep a band together you simply need a gimmick. The gimmick I use is to pay them money."  Duke Ellington

#9: For a warm welcome no matter who you are: "If it wasn't for hustlers, gangsters and gamblers there'd be no Jazz. Wasn't the middle-class who said Let's go hear Bird tonight." Betty Carter

#8: To change your life: "I can't imagine my life without the extraordinary bebop jazz revolution in New York in the late '40s and '50s." Robert Wyat

#7: For a musical epiphany: "I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy and Bird." John Coltrane
 

#6: For an escape from Brexit, Trump and Dry-January: "Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions." Johnny Griffin

#5: For the disreputable musicians of the Echoes Of Ellington Orchestra: "By and large Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with." Duke Ellington

#4: To settle the question: "As it enters the ear does it come in like broken glass or does it come in like honey?" Eddie Condon

#3: To keep calm and hear the Swing Era evolve into Be-Bop before your very ears!
 

#2: To commune with Amy: "I would say that jazz is my own language." Amy Winehouse
 


#1: Because two out of three ain't bad: "The only things that the United States has given to the world are skyscrapers, jazz, and cocktails." Federico Garcia Lorca (writer - everyone's a critic)