The blues is not the creation of a crushed-spirited people. It is the product of a forward-looking, upward-striving people. Albert Murray Read Quote
Effective stream-of-consciousness narration is the product of verbal precision, not just of literal documentation. It is decidedly not a matter of unedited free-association. Albert Murray Read Quote
Jazz music, as is also the case with the old down-home spirituals, gospel and jubilee songs, jumps, shouts and moans, is essentially an American vernacular or idiomatic modification of musical conventions imported from Europe, beginning back during the time of the early settlers of the original colonies. Albert Murray Read Quote
The United States is not a nation of black and white people. Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and that black people are not black. Albert Murray Read Quote
When the Negro musician or dancer swings the blues, he is fulfilling the same fundamental existential requirement that determines the mission of the poet, the priest and the medicine man. Albert Murray Read Quote
As any competent student of literary composition knows, the more natural and casual a voice sounds in print, the more likely it is to have been edited time and again. Albert Murray Read Quote
If it is properly done, the ‘as told to’ autobiography represents how the subject wants his story told. Albert Murray Read Quote
Now, one can often get away with playing music by ear when it is not being recorded, but writing is another matter; its mistakes are not forgotten because they are still there to confuse us. Albert Murray Read Quote
A jazz tune, melody, or composition is usually based on either a traditional twelve-bar, eight-bar, or four-bar blues chorus or on the thirty-two-bar chorus of the American popular song. Albert Murray Read Quote
