Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison, OBEis a Northern Irish singer, songwriter and musician. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016 he was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth31 August 1945
CityBelfast, Northern Ireland
The theory is that you don't play a song the same way twice because it's jazz. That's where I'm coming from.
Jazz was always cool. That was what I liked about jazz - it was always cool. Now I see the cats that were basically cool getting kind of uncool. So that ruins what I feel about jazz.
That's the jazz that I like - the stuff that has a soothing effect.
I'd much prefer to hear somebody like Ed Thigpen [drummer with New York session group Stuff, and featured on innumerable hits] take a solo. I mean, that's what it is. I'd much rather hear that than the jazz/rock thing because it's blowing an aspect of jazz that I really like...the level where you can snap your fingers to it and you can groove to it. You can do anything to it.
Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it.
[Jazz musicians ] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.
We're [with Robbie Robertson ] jazz musicians. The context may be rock 'n' roll but it's still jazz. It's jazz and that means improvization...you play a tune the way it feels and you play it differently every time. It can never be the same.
I just can't stand it [ jazz/rock]. It just doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't hit me...it doesn't get me...it just doesn't grab me.
I'm talking about noise rock. I don't think that noise rock element belongs in jazz. It's not for me anyway; it just doesn't fit.
I realized that what I was looking for was doing collaborations with other people - people who can play a ballad, rock, jazz. I was looking for more co-op type things than what I had been doing, which had been completely my own trip.
Jazz goes into folk music, into rock music. Jazz is in practically everything except classical music where they're reading the same music all the time, the same way, the same tempo every night.
The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.
There aren't any labels - all jazz means is improvization and you can never play a tune the same way twice. So jazz spills over into everything.
I just can't stand jazz/rock. I think it's the worst thing that's come down the river yet.