Jazz and Presentation

Garr Reynolds over at Presentation Zen has an article on Jazz and the art of presenting that you should check out. His area of expertise is in teaching people in business how to do effective presentations. But like the basic idea behind Jazz Medicine, he writes that jazz “still inspires me in my professional life as well as in my personal/spiritual life” and he points out that “it's lessons can be applied to other aspects of life, even the art of presentation.”

Or medicine.

He goes on to list a number of inspiring quotes from some of the greatest jazz musicians in history that apply to more than music. A few examples:

• “The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.” (Duke-Ellington)
• “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.” (Dizzy-Gillespie)
• “Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.” (Charles Mingus)
• “A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.” (Herbie-Hancock)

Check out his site for more.