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Sound is the first thing that we tune into.

Lee Konitz

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Lee Konitz
Age: 92 †
Born: 1927
Born: October 13
Died: 2020
Died: April 15
Composer
Jazz Musician
Saxophonist
Chicago
Illinois
Leon Konitz
Music
Firsts
First
Thing
Tune
Tunes
Jazz
Sound

More quotes by Lee Konitz

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Many people do think it's naive to improvise in front of paying customers. I'm not saying one way is better than another.
Lee Konitz
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We all learn from each other, and I never really hung out with guys in that way, so I missed out.
Lee Konitz
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A first love always occupies a special place.
Lee Konitz
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I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.
Lee Konitz
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After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.
Lee Konitz
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I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.
Lee Konitz
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Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.
Lee Konitz
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As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.
Lee Konitz
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It's very demanding to make up your own music.
Lee Konitz
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I always felt as a horn player, a jam session wasn't satisfying enough for me. I should have been a rhythm section player, actually.
Lee Konitz
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I have been able to get a small audience. It's not the huge audience, but it's enough to make it possible to play. I appreciate that.
Lee Konitz
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I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.
Lee Konitz
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Names and theoretical things don't occur to me. If they do, I'm not doing my real playing mode.
Lee Konitz
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In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.
Lee Konitz
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I listen to classical music very much. There's a lot of jazz that I don't enjoy listening to.
Lee Konitz
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I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.
Lee Konitz
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Out of Coltrane's whole history, there are things which I think are great from all the periods.
Lee Konitz
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I'd like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I've heard.
Lee Konitz
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I just completed a tour in Europe. I played every night. This requires traveling some days for six hours in a van or a train or a car. After six weeks of that, I checked into the hotel and just fell apart.
Lee Konitz
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I understood that if I wanted to work, the saxophone was the main instrument. The clarinet was what we call a double.
Lee Konitz