David Amram Quotes

The idea of the peace movement and of people who spent their entire lives trying to have a more egalitarian, just society, suddenly became swamped by the record industry, by the new rock and roll culture, and by the idea of not trusting anyone over thirty.

I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last.

When today's generation reads Jack's books or they listen to the music created by some of us, I believe that they see there is a different way of approaching today's life and today's sometimes seeming hopelessness that can provide answers.

A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington.

When you are accompanying someone, you are listening to them the way you listen to a Bach Chorale, where four parts are going on at the same time, all of which are gorgeous melodies, all being played simultaneously.

Esquire, in a July, 1957 issue, has a photograph of me playing the French horn at the Five Spot.

That is the way a great master carpenter feels, or an architect or composer or anyone who creates anything - people want to be appreciated for what they have done.

The first time I heard Ron Whitehead read I felt what I imagine those who heard Abraham Lincoln deliver The Gettysburg Address felt.

In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.

Allen Ginsberg was a world authority on the writing of William Blake, and had an incredible knowledge of classic literature and world politics.

That is what I did with Jack, and that's why he liked to do the readings with me because he knew I was there for him, and for our ability to blend the poetry and the music.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti had a tremendous education as an artist and also an enormous knowledge of literarture.

That by listening to some music, by reading some books, by looking at paintings, and most important by hanging out with one another - by collaborating with one another and creating your own network - you can achieve something that is much better than what is out there.

There are a lot of wonderful things created in our culture that have been ignored that can speak to them.

The Upper Bohemia people wore tuxedos in an art gallery, and Lower Bohemia was all of us.

Even before he had one book published, Jack was one of those people you could feel was very special.

The atmosphere was wide open in those circles that we traveled in.