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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Compatible Quotes: An Occasional Series

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It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling. —Bill Evans

Originality’s the thing. You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things but without originality you ain’t really nowhere. Gotta be original. —Lester Young

A chimpanzee could learn to do what I do physically. But it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life. —Jaco Pastorius

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music. —Billie Holiday

Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that sh__ and just play. —Charlie Parker

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Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, … [MORE]

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