Zach Blair

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

If you can’t play the blues, you might as well hang it up.

What’s tied Jazz together is its foundation in the Blues, a reliance on group interplay and the unique phenomenon of spontaneous improvisation.

In order to complete your cycle, a musician needs to write; document what is going through your mind and where you are harmonically, theoretically, historically.

The louder they [the band] play the softer I sing.

I’m trying to make music a sensual expression, not and academic experiment.

I play as I feel.

There’s a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There’s also happiness to it if you want to hear it. Blues was started by the slaves and I think everybody thinks that it all should be sad… even some of the slaves had fun with it.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

Music has to be accessible.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

Being a Jazz musician is not a rose garden!

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

The challenge to the improvisor is to get permanence into his spontaneity. The challenge to the composer is to get spontaneity into his permanence.

Its all about finding the right note at the right place and knowing when to leave it alone.