Siphiwo > Siphiwo's Quotes

“Courage is fear that has said its prayers and decided to go forward anyway.”
― Joyce Meyer, I Dare You: Embrace Life with Passion

“It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people’s shit?”
― Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography

“I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me “a legend”.(…) A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.”
― Miles Davis

“Do not fear mistakes - there are none. ”
― Miles Davis

“It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.”
― Miles Davis

“I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it.”
― Miles Davis

“If you understood everything I said, you’d be me”
― Miles Davis

“Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.”
― Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography

“To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of "blackness", "maleness", "femaleness", or "whiteness".”
― Cornel West, Race Matters

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
― Thelonious Monk

“Music is always for the listener, but the first listener is always the musician”
― Wynton Marsalis

“Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.”
― Keith Jarrett

“Life is a lot like jazz - it's best when you improvise.”
― George Gershwin

“Today you go into make a modern recording with all this technology. The bass plays first, then the drums come in later, then they track the trumpet and the singer comes in and they ship the tape somewhere. Well, none of the musicians have played together. You can’t play jazz music that way. In order for you to play jazz, you’ve got to listen to them. The music forces you at all times to address what other people are thinking and for you to interact with them with empathy and to deal with the process of working things out. And that’s how our music really could teach what the meaning of American democracy is.”
― Wynton Marsalis

“If Music is a Place -- then Jazz is the City, Folk is the Wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a Temple.”
― Vera Nazarian