You decide!
Sources quoted if known....
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Never forget that performance is performance and recordings are recordings....
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'To survive as a musician, it is essential to fall mutually in love with someone who has a disposable income.....' |
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You can only create what you hear..’ ‘Saturday Live’, BBC R1 3.11.1984 |
“Miles Davis was to jazz what Mel Blanc was to cartoons.” Wire Magazine November 1991 ~ “Miles dying was a good thing for the jazz scene. It freed up about fifty per cent of the budget of every jazz festival in the world for other musicians....” - quoted during a lecture at the Royal Academy of Music September 1995 |
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The true
improviser should only perform once. ~ Some people go to improvised music concerts - some people have children. ~ On asked how he got into improvisation BJ replied, ‘Lack of education’. - ‘Mixing It’ BBC R3
(1.2.93)
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The trouble with education... |
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'The
educational system has been a
lot more benevolent towards jazz, but if there's any change they're coming out slicker and blander...' - 'Jazz Express' November 1992 |
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Bemoaning the loss of a personal ‘buzz’ which had seemingly disappeared from |
“Every day since we’ve been born, Daddy, you’ve played the same two tunes. What are they called?”, enquired a ten year old twin. “Scales, girl - and arpeggios.” |
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‘I like
heavy metal because it’s a wonderful, adolescent
pantomime - unashamedly so. And heavy metal’s good
for the badge industry...’ - Wire November 1992 |
ADVERTISING
IS JUST SHOWING OFF.
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"If you don't shave, you can save three days a year - I think it's roughly 15 minutes per day. So I did it once, I saved up and I was gonna spend my three days at Christmas but then I found I was stooping..." - 'Jazz Express' November 1992 |
'A guitar is just a desk to work on.' - 'Jazz Review' January 2000 |
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'...reviewers and writers on the popular music press must take a more objective look at the inspirational merits of the performer and consider whether atmosphere is created by the person themselves or the machines they are operating. |
-
this written before computer games,
the web and downloading even existed....
'The music industry seems locked in a downward slide towards self-extinction. We are only too award that leisure time is becoming more important - visual, audio-visual and physical outlets are taking the initiative away from purely aural pleasures. - 'Musician' December 1987 |
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I love fairy
stories and myths. But they’re just that. And remember – all men are cremated equal… - Jazz UK February 2010 |
"Surely
it’s more important to face up to reality. I
like to think you get more satisfaction from things real than things imagined. Certainly when it comes to copulation I’d say that was the case.” - The Wire March 1988. |
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‘I like opera. It’s a great employer of people.’ |
On Rock music in the 1980's: ‘It only takes two fingers on a synthesiser, a rhythm box, automatic bass and chording, baggy trousers and a puppy fat free jowl and you could be the Human League, Blancmange, Spandau Ballet or Tears For Fears [or seemingly any rock/pop group from the early ‘80’s]. Anyone or all of them - they’re all playing the same rhythms in the same key tones - except the handsome Robert De Niro lookalike saxophonist who is probably called ‘Zoot’ and sounds like you’d wish he’d hurry up and reach eighteen so he’ll be given the key...’ - from One Two Testing December 1983. |
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"I don't think folks realise just how much ‘proper’ musicians (i.e. those who take responsibility for every single note they play) are marginalised in our society. For the MP3 digital generation, ‘music’ is just background comfort sounds or a ‘style accessory’. |
There is a fine
line between respect for ones forefathers’
music and profiteering from nostalgia. |
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"Jazz is the greatest music of the 20th Century and will be the classical music of the 21st and 22nd..." - Jazz UK January 2000 |
"We [the English] are a
melancholic race. We live on an island with
seven different weather fronts. We've got a right to sing the blues!" - Blues in Britain October 2011 |
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~
The
following unpublished letter was
immediately dispatched:
Sir,
It was very kind of Mr. Smith to
bring to our attention the
plight of a Soviet rock
musician.
But are your readers aware of
the many British musicians and
composers who, for want of a
better description,
are also
under virtual ‘house arrest’
due to the rigid and competitive
obligations of the music
industry today.
To speak one’s musical mind can
only be done at one’s own
expense.
The musical output from major
record companies is so
stylistically narrow, the free
thinking musician can
only
‘compete’ by
spending huge amounts of money
on promotion and, more
pointedly, by musically ‘toeing
the line’ and
‘playing the
game’ - in much the same way a
‘dissident’ is advised to act in
the Soviet Union.
I cannot help feeling we have a
position now where the Arts
Council in Great Britain does
for musicians here what
Amnesty
International does for ‘those
outside’ in Russia!
Please forget prisoners of
conscience momentarily and
consider the suppressed
conscience of our own
(musical)
prisoners.
We have a
right to freedom too!
" ‘McDonalds’ is the metaphorical icon. The figurehead for all that is rotten. Every child born carries the highest hopes. But there are less and less choices. Whilst aspiring to be a top chef, somehow the towel gets thrown in, you give up and end up serving up fast food fast. The only truly delicious thing about this icon is that the more capitalism is profit led, the more it becomes like communism. Which, again, suggests that system led societies need individuals who have the guts to grab the thrown towel and use it to gently wipe away such long term cancers. Don’t boycott such businesses. Enjoy them once in a while, but never, ever apply to the University of Hamburgerology. Let teenagers work in them - they’ll never eat another one again." - notes for 'Scratches of Spain' 1987 |
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If one was faced with dance, intellectual analysis or death, I would chose dancing - then death. |
"I checked out Charles Ive's
'Variations On 'America’ '.
Written in 1891 for organ when he was 17. To us, the tune is‘God Save The Queen’. The 20th Century composer had been gazumped....." - Venue Magazine March1996 |
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They say that today’s
newspaper is tomorrow’s
fish and chip paper - now, the digital news is tomorrow's micro-chips.... |
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Listening to music on headphones is like taking a bath by just dipping one's feet in the water..... |
"They like the blues in Germany. They can learn English because the first line's always repeated twice." - Birmingham Post 27.3.1998 |
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