Yogi Berra Explains Jazz

Yogi Berra explains Jazz


Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half
improvisation. The other half is the part people play
while others are playing something they never played
with anyone who played that part. So if you play the
wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it
might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if
you play it too right, it's wrong.

Interviewer: I don't understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you
can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's
what's so simple about it.

Interviewer: Do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I
understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive
today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are
dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But
so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still
alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead.
Some would kill for it.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now
happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz,
you don't hear notes when they happen because that
would be some other type of music. Other types of
music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as
something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don't understand.

Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not
understand jazz that well.

 

Yep.

 

Strangely he starts making sense, then his follow up/explanation blows it.