pianists-from-the-united-states

"Even while I was studying at [Manhattan School of Music], I was learning about melody and rhythm, and theory, and harmony, and all the great composers like Scriabin, Khatchaturian, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev...Bach and Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Schoenberg, Alan Berg...Boulez, Stockhausen...We would listen, for example, to Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, or a Bach Cantata or the Prelude and Fugue, and so on. And then the teacher, Ludmila Ulehla, picked the essential 20 composers in music history, from...Mozart...and so on, up through...Debussy, Scriabin...and Stockhousen...Eventually, my goal became to put all that I had absorbed from these studies into jazz, into, say, "Stella By Starlight," to integrate the harmony, the melodic ideas, and so on. I continued doing that for about twenty years afterwards. I spent hours and hours at the piano, sleeping as little [as] three hours a night. But I loved it, so it wasn't arduous work."

"You must remember that it was a different time...It was before everyone was looking into their smartphones. There were computers but it wasn't such a dominant vibe in the air. People talked to each other, met in bars, and went out to hear music...In Greenwich Village...there were at least six clubs within a few walking minutes...Around that time there were at least 10 functioning clubs just in Manhattan, not even counting Brooklyn, that featured music seven nights a week...People would go out to the the clubs, not just musicians. There was a real sense of community...We were very lucky to live in this time."

"Being curious is an absolute rule of life. If you don’t have that, I don’t know what you're doing in this music."

"Very often the things that we consider to be new are not new. They're just new combinations or reanimations and reimaginations of things that have already been done, put together in a different way."

"Red Garland is one of the those musicians you probably know a lot more about than you think you do, but it's still not enough. He made his biggest splash as a sideman, but today we induct a record under his own name into the NPR Basic Jazz Record Library. A Garland of Red is some of the finest piano trio jazz you can find."

"Depending on his mood, Fats Waller could be ‘the cheerful little earful’ or ‘the harmful little armful’. Usually, he was both, winning a huge following in the 1930s and ’40s with his high-spirited, satirical takes on run-of-the-mill popular songs. He transformed his material with a sense of humour, ebullient vocal style and the infectious swing enshrined in the name of his jumping sextet: Fats Waller and His Rhythm. But jazz fans and musicians prized Waller's glittering piano style. He was a product of the demanding school of New York stride players, whose formidable technique was matched by competitive zest. They challenged each other wherever there was a piano and Waller often prevailed with his sparkling invention and the dexterity, power and finesse you might expect from a sometime pupil of Leopold Godowsky. Waller’s taste for classical music was as natural to him as his genius for swing."

"Dave Brubeck was incredibly well known for most of his career. His early success with college audiences – the Brubeck Quartet virtually invented the campus circuit – catapulted him on to the cover of Time magazine in 1954. In 1960 his star status increased with the album Time Out. Brubeck’s mixture of asymmetrical rhythms and catchy tunes won international renown, though the disc’s biggest hit, the sinuous ‘Take Five’, was written by the quartet’s alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, with some structural advice from his boss. But, as all too often in jazz, popular celebrity inspired critical condescension. He was slated for his ‘academic’ approach – he had studied with Darius Milhaud, classical composer and member of the French collective Les Six – his use of such classical devices as counterpoint and polytonality, his sometimes thunderous keyboard attack and disinclination to swing in a conventional manner. Critics damned his lyricism with faint praise and dismissed him from the jazz tradition. However, over the years, as the idea of a monolithic tradition has become suspect, Brubeck has come to be seen as a remarkable, original talent. Far from being some kind of uptight academic, he had trouble reading music and was one of the most purely intuitive pianists jazz has produced. His style was founded completely on a commitment to musical expression, fuelled by a belief that, as he once put it, ‘jazz should have the right to take big chances’ – even going beyond what has been considered jazz."

"As a matter of right, Jelly Roll Morton would have assumed that any jazz starter collection would begin with him. After all, he once proudly proclaimed, ‘I myself invented jazz in the year of 1902’. Grandiosity was his lifelong style: pianist, composer, leader; pool-shark, pimp and hustler – there was something mythic about Jelly, right down – or up – to the glittering diamond in one of his front teeth. People resented his arrogance, but as one of his musicians put it, ‘Sure he bragged, but he could back up everything he said.’ And while he may not have invented jazz, he was arguably the first great jazz composer, the man who proved it was possible to realise both a compelling structure and spontaneous excitement. The key to his achievement was a many-sided and acute musical imagination, steeped in the cultural melting pot of New Orleans. Morton absorbed all the riches the Crescent City had to offer – blues, ragtime, marches, grand opera, quadrilles and the ‘Spanish tinge’ he maintained was essential to jazz. His piano style displays all these influences, at once refined and raffish, encompassing elegant turns and trills, barrelhouse chords and a strain of melancholy lyricism. The same qualities suffuse his orchestral works. Morton first formed the band he called Red Hot Peppers in Chicago in 1926, and their recordings will come as a revelation to anyone who thinks of early jazz as raucous and one-dimensional. Morton’s men were all masters of the vibrant New Orleans style, and gave his compositions just the right interpretative and improvisatory gusto."

"In its post-World War II heyday, bebop was known as much for its precarious lifestyle as for musical daring. Generated in no small part by the aura surrounding the mythic, self-destructive Charlie Parker, drug addiction became an occupational hazard among aspiring jazz players. But amid this chronicle of disaster, Clifford Brown presented a shining alternative. The most brilliant young trumpeter of his generation, he was completely drug-free, a model both as musician and man – disciplined and good-natured. Thus it seemed a particularly cruel trick of fate that, in 1956, he died in a car accident, aged just 25. Though he had only been recording for four years, Brown left a considerable legacy on disc. He enlivened every session with his bright sound, impeccable facility and, above all, the sense that everything he played was driven by delight, an insatiable urge to say something new in each solo. Sheer fluency is perhaps his most striking quality, carried along by a rich tone, and an attack as crisp, intelligent and varied as the buoyant logic that informed his improvisations."

"It was famously observed that, though Duke Ellington played piano, his real instrument was his orchestra. Similarly, while Eddie Condon was a useful rhythm guitarist, he was a virtuoso of the spirit of Chicago jazz. Organiser, promoter, impresario, publican and publicist, he symbolised its carefree pleasures until his death in 1973. [...] If Chicago jazz epitomised the devil-may-care mood of the 1920s, it also looked forward to the ’30s: Chicago stars such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa spearheaded the age of the big bands. But Condon kept faith with his original passion, espousing both small-group spontaneity and the fun-loving, hard-drinking ethos that went with it. Leading groups in clubs, arranging record dates and concerts, he became a one-man mission for Chicago jazz and was rewarded in the ’40s when public interest revived in Dixieland. Condon was the music’s embodiment. A dapper figure with slicked-back hair, he was a celebrated wit, typically addressing a sparse audience as ‘Lady and gentleman’. The music itself was first class, as you can hear in Eddie Condon: Windy City Jazz.[...] In later years, the Condon style was often barbarised by amateurs, giving Dixieland a bad name. But he would be pleased with a record that so appealingly distils the best of his life’s work."

"It tells you everything you need to know about Stephen Stills that even Hendrix rated him highly. Stills was a guitarist’s guitarist in the era of greats, so it’s no surprise that when he transitioned from rock to folk he became a genre-hopping pioneer. His acoustic wrangling is a fine reflection of the man: fiery, idiosyncratic, and all up front. He wields his guitar like a tommy gun and rattles off rock-infused folk licks and open-tuned melodic rhapsodies for fun. About as dynamic an acoustic player as you’ll ever see."

"Grindcore is the bridge between thrash and death metal mixed with brutally fast hardcore. You take it and throw it all in a blender, hit puree and stand back."

"Come and knock on our door We've been waiting for you Where the kisses are hers and hers and his Three's company, too."

"I believe in little things Like you and me And just how big Little things can be"

"I believe in little things that you can hardly see like honeycomb and spider webs and starfish in the sea. I believe in little things like icy drops of rain that melt into the morning mist when winds are warm again."

"Sunny Day Sweepin' the clouds away On my way to where the air is sweet Can you tell me how to get — How to get to Sesame Street?"

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

"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"

"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"

"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."

"All my inspiration today," he [Miles Davis] asserts "comes from Ahmad Jamal, the Chicago pianist. I got the idea for this treatment of 'Autumn Leaves' from him."

"If you're applying for credit and write that you’re an insurance salesman, or a member of the Chicago Symphony, you won't have trouble. But just write "jazz musician" and you can't even buy a sofa on credit."

"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."

"Miles, Thad Jones, Clark Terry, Gil Evans, myself—the reason we always stay young is because we've been part of three eras. We heard Lunceford, Hines, Basie at their peak--I was a sponge, I absorbed that era. Then it was the Gillespie-Parker era—we were still young, and again we sponged it up. Now we are living in the electronic age . . . and we're still listening."

"[On querying the permanent use of the word "jazz"] So was the word Negro ! Yet you hardly hear it anymore—it's now Afro-American or black. All sorts of linguistic changes are going on: Instead of chairman we now say chairperson in order to upgrade the position of women in our society. Jazz is an important-enough area of our culture to demand constant refinement."

"[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."

""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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"A guy that knows all these electronic things may be great [...] but a guy who knows acoustic and electronic is better. Just like a guy who knows Mozart only may be great, but a guy who knows Mozart and Duke Ellington is better. And a guy who knows Mozart and Brahms and Ellington is even better . . . It's musical depth perception."

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"[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"

"[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."

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

"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.""

"When my people were brought over here from Asia and Africa, they were given various names, such as Jones and Smith. I haven't adopted a name. It's a part of my ancestral background and heritage: I have re-established my original name. I have gone back to my own vine and fig tree."

"This photo is by Erica McDonald. She doesn’t waste time - she sees, she captures. She is brilliant. She has shot covers for Raven, Ballads, 7, and many images of me over time. Because in the past, male photographers have essentially been pricks pressuring me to disrobe, touching me inappropriately etc., I work with women. Photographers like Jodie Olson (This Fire) and @ebruyildiz (American Quilt) and @merrifairy (Amen) are humble geniuses."

"First when there's nothing But a slow glowing dream That your fear seems to hide Deep inside your mindAll alone I have cried Silent tears full of pride In a world made of steel Made of stoneWell, I hear the music Close my eyes, feel the rhythm Wrap around Take a hold of my heartWhat a feeling Bein's believin' I can have it all Now I'm dancing for my lifeTake your passion And make it happen Pictures come alive You can dance right through your life"

"Well, I like to think about what Louis Armstrong and also Duke Ellington said about music. There'are only two kinds of music: good and bad... And, I would like to think about my music as being good."

"I was criticized by some people for my first album because they said I was taking sacred music. They knew nothing about what I was doing. That was no sacred music; that's music I wrote. I patterned it around voodoo church music, but it wasn't exactly the music of the lyrics of nothing'."

"When the voice and the vision on the inside is more profound, and more clear and loud than all opinions on the outside, you've begun to master your life."

"I think what happens with classical music is that there is a concrete expectation of how it's done. For some people, that's their jam and I applaud that. I'm too sloppy of a classical player to be able to do that consistently. I want to hear colour and I want to hear and play something I've never played before. So that’s really where jazz came into it. You're learning a conversation, musically speaking, and then you're putting your own phrase into that."

"I’ve been playing for 38 years, and I will take lessons until I'm in the grave. There's always something to learn. We each have our own abilities — be it music, be it accounting, be it culinary. But there's this idea, why would anyone want to put a cap or put a ceiling on their craft, right?"

"Melody is what makes a song a memory."