Composers From The United States

"Bodies working overtime, It's man against man. And all that ever matters is, baby, Who's ahead in the game. Funny, But it's always the same.Playing, Playing with the boys. Staying, Playing with the boys."

"Live long enough, you're bound to find Moonshine'll make a man go blind. Never can tell what the brew will do, But there's times you wind up feelin' so fine. Some women seem to have a knack; They'll turn you on and leave you flat. Never can tell who's playin' for keeps So tell me what's holding you back I know your heart can take it."

"Does anything last forever? I don't know Maybe we're near the end. (So darlin' tell me) So darlin', oh How can we go on together? Now that we've grown apart, oh no. Well, the only way to start Is heart to heart."

"(I'm free!) Heaven helps the man who fights his fear. Love's the only thing that keeps me here. (I'm free!) You're the reason that I'm hanging on. My heart's staying where my heart belongs. (I'm free!)"

"Been working so hard, I'm punching my card. Eight hours, for what? Oh, tell me what I got. I've got this feeling That time's just holding me down. I'll hit the ceiling, Or else I'll tear up this town.So now I gotta cut loose, Footloose. Kick off the Sunday shoes. Please, Louise, Pull me off of my knees. Jack, get back, Come on before we crack. Lose your blues, Everybody cut footloose."

"I'm like the rain 'Cause I like your thunder. I know we've learned to live together Here in the heartlight. Stand in the dark Oh, oh, and I'll light a candle And then we'll dance it in the moonlight Until the sunrise."

"You think that maybe it's over. Only if you want it to be. Are you gonna wait for a sign, your miracle? Stand up and fight.(This is it) Make no mistake where you are. (This is it) Your back's to the corner. (This is it) Don't be a fool anymore. (This is it) The waiting is over."

"So keep the fire burning tonight, See just what comes into sight. Don't take forever, Take it through the night. And believe the sun will rise with the dawn. That's all you need to go on. But for tonight, Just keep the fire burning bright."

"I wanna sing you a love song. I wanna rock you in my arms all night long. I wanna get to know you. I wanna show you the peaceful feelin' of my home."

"Your mama don't dance And your daddy don't rock and roll. Your mama don't dance And your daddy don't rock and roll. When evening rolls around And it's time to go to town, Where do you go To rock and roll?"

"Now I know my life has given me more than memories. Day by day We can see In every moment there's a reason to carry on.Sweet love's showing us a heavenly light, I've never seen such a beautiful sight. See love glowing on us every night. I know forever we'll be doing it."

"People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one. And we've only just begun, Think I'm gonna have a son. He will be like she and me, as free as a dove, Conceived in love. Sun is gonna shine above.And even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you, honey. And everything will bring a chain of love. And in the morning, when I rise, You bring a tear of joy to my eyes, And tell me everything is gonna be alright."

"So help me if you can, I've got to get Back to the house at Pooh Corner by one. You'd be surprised, there's so much to be done. Count all the bees in the hive, Chase all the clouds from the sky Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh."

"She had a place in his life, He never made her think twice. As he rises to her apology, Anybody else would surely know. He's watching her go.But what a fool believes He sees No wise man has the power To reason away. What seems to be Is always better than nothing, And nothing at all."

"He had his literary weaknesses, Charles Dickens, but they were all dear, big, attractive ones, virtues grown a bit wild and rank. Somehow when you put him -- with his elemental humor, his inexhaustible vitality, his humanity, sympathy, and pity -- beside the Impeccables, he always looms large. Just for the moment, when the heart overpowers reason, he even makes the flawless ones look a little faded and colorless."

"The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or the inspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for a season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you should bear thistles."

"Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood.”"

"She was fairly good at any kind of housework not demanding brains. (Chapter 20)"

"Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,"

""She has a nice ladylike appearance, but when she takes her bonnet off she looks seventy years old.” “She ought to keep it off, then,” returned Francesca, “ for she looked eighty with it on."

""Mr. Popham is a Methodist and I'm a Congregationalist, but I say let the children go where they like, so I always take them with me." (Chapter 24)"

"When I was a little girl (I always think that these words, in precisely this juxtaposition, are six of the most charming in the language) -- when I was a little girl, I lived, between the ages of six and sixteen, in a small village in Maine."

"Aunt Celia is one of those persons who are born to command, and when they are thrown in contact with those who are born to be commanded all goes as merry as a marriage bell ; otherwise not."

"Salemina is so English! I can’t think how she manages. She is, in fact, more than English; she is British."

"When you have wanted something very much, and didn’t know whether you would ever get it or not, and then all at once you find you have it, you almost wish it hadn’t come so soon!"

"I knew him at once!—the smiling, genial, mobile face, rather highly colored, the brilliant eyes, the watch chain, the red carnation in the button-hole, and the expressive hands, much given to gesture."

"Lord, I do not ask that Thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is, and I will attend to the rest."

"Nothing .. can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geography when I was a child, namely, " The French are a gay and polite people, fond of dancing and light wines."

"Ooh, dream weaver I believe you can get me through the night Ooh, dream weaver I believe we can reach the morning light"

"Fly me high through the starry skies Maybe to an astral plane Cross the highways of fantasy Help me to forget today's pain Ooh, dream weaver I believe you can get me through the night Ooh, dream weaver I believe we can reach the morning light Though the dawn may be coming soon There still may be some time Fly me away to the bright side of the moon Meet me on the other side"

"Well, I think it's time to get ready To realize just what I have found I have lived only half of what I am It's all clear to me now My heart is on fire My soul's like a wheel that's turnin' My love is alive My love is alive, yeah, girl, yeah"

"The culture of suppressing women composers and performers goes centuries back in Germany and other countries."

"Civil-Civility depicts the acts and writings of courageous women who I felt defied all odds to help women and humanity."

"Listen to the way Jamal uses space. He lets it go so that you can feel the rhythm section and the rhythm section can feel you. It's not crowded ... Ahmad is one of my favorites. I live until he makes another record."

"[When asked how he practiced] With the door open, hoping that someone would drive down my street in a big luxurious car and hear me! [...] I was never the practitioner in the sense of 12 hours a day, but I always thought about music. I think about music all the time."

"I once heard Ben Webster playing his heart out on a ballad [...] All of a sudden he stopped. I asked him, "Why did you stop, Ben?" He said, "I forgot the lyrics." That's what Nat (King) Cole was talking about, "You have learn to live with a song.""

"[Jazz and the European classical repertoire] In Pittsburgh we didn't separate the two schools [...] We studied Bach and Ellington, Mozart and Art Tatum. When you start at 3, what you hear you play. I heard all these things."

"[On maintaining high levels of energy into old age] It's a divine gift, that's all I can tell you [...] We don't create, we discover – and the process of discovery gives you energy"

"I was playing Liszt's Eroica etudes when I was 11 . . . though I can't play it now." (Jamal reflects on this with a laugh.) "It all made me eventually settle on calling this great music 'American classical music' instead of jazz. It's the only art form that developed in the United States except for American Indian art. It managed to survive because it's so strong and so natural and so pure."

""I do things differently," he asserts. "I put it down to my parents, and to being raised in Pittsburgh, which is unique. I was delivering papers to Billy Strayhorn's family when I was seven years old. It was Mary Lou Williams's town, Kenny Clarke's, Art Blakey's, Earl Hines's, Roy Eldridge's, George Benson's, Stanley Turrentine's, Earle Wilde [sic], the exponent of Liszt, Maxine Sullivan, Loren Mazel [sic] the conductor. My father was an open-hearth worker in the steel mills, but they got me playing the piano when I was three years old."

"[Jazz] interpreted the works of composers such as the Gershwins or Irving Berlin beyond their wildest dreams. Take the pianist Art Tatum; most of the body of work he did wasn't his own music, and yet it was totally his. That's a process that has allowed what is called jazz to add so much to the world's culture. Look at the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, institutions that wouldn't have thought of teaching Louis Armstrong – now Louis Armstrong is teaching them, they all have jazz departments, and they teach kids from all over the world."

"Years ago, when I was growing up and bands like Basie and Ellington came to the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, where I was born, they were called entertainers. You can hardly use that word today, when men like Max Roach and Jackie McLean have tenure as professors at major American colleges."

"When 1 was 7, my mother arranged for me to take piano lessons. They cost one dollar a lesson. She was a domestic. She walked to work to save that dollar."

"I always tried to divest myself of the music business. I wasn’t too thrilled with the music business at any time [...] So I have always sought to do other things."

"I'm still evolving, whenever I sit down at the piano [...] I still come up with some fresh ideas."

"When I pass a piano anywhere, I have to touch it or play it."

"Performing is like being the matador in a bullring. You have to be constantly concerned about what you're doing or you get gored."

"I listened to music from Tatum and Erroll Garner to Mozart. I've composed since I was 10 years old – I used to do 20% my own pieces and 80% other people's; now it's turned the other way. After a certain time you discover the Mozart in you, the Duke Ellington or Billy Strayhorn in you. It takes time to discover yourself. You also have to find and keep players who are in tune with what you're doing; you have that empathy, the quality of breathing together."

"[In response to a comment ("I sometime-get the feeling that Jamal would rather crawl into the piano than off the bench at the conclusion of a performance, so deeply involved is he in his music") by critic Philip Elwood] Maybe so. But I regret that I still don't have enough time to spend with my instrument. I think I could become more at one with it if I did."

"It was 25 cents here, $6 there. At $6, one gets to thinking it's a lot of money. So then economics started dictating the direction of my career, and that's when I started devoting more time to jazz. When I got up to $60 a week, which was as much as my father was making, I said, well, this is it. And I was doing that before I left high school."