One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
The press is like any business. It's a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.
The business today is completely different and it's very producer driven, so that a songwriter needs to have producing chops, be a singer/songwriter, or find a singer to develop.
The cult of individuality and personality, which promotes painters and poets only to promote itself, is really a business. The greater the 'genius' of the personage, the greater the profit.
We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.
I think you need a really strong businessperson running the state, a person who's used to turning negatives into positives, which is what happens in business.
If you are a musician and you don't show any interest on the business level then you are actually vulnerable and people will rip you off. They will sweet talk you into anything.
There's a bunch of people who sit around and make excuses for themselves and get upset with artists, but you already know what this is - it's an ego-driven business.
Even for the people in the business who are real music lovers it's really about putting things in the right boxes, and my style doesn't fit into a box.
There has to be a measure of faith. That's what this business is all about: trusting in something that may never show up, that you have no concrete proof of.
Sometimes people walk into plays by accident - they don't even know what they're looking at; they just think to give it a chance. That can be the beginning of a long friendship.
My dad knows every single accent from being an old Yiddish grandpa to being Indian or Jamaican. It was very cool to grow up with that.
I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.
Naturally enough, I couldn't have foreseen the vast sea change which has come upon that scene as a result of German reunification and associated events.
For the last three years, I've been working on 'Bromst,' and that's all that encompassed my brain. And now that it's out, it will change the way that I think musically.
How did this or that change my music? The only time I have to think about it is when an interviewer asks me that.
I was gutted to leave my boyfriend at home when I started my tour, but taking my pillow was like taking a little bit of him with me.
Even though I live in America more, I feel like when I go to Adelaide, that's when I get to go home.
The earth is my altar, the sky is my dome, mind is my garden, the heart is my home and I'm always at home - yea, I'm always at Om.
Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted... to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home.
It's one thing to sit at home and write a piece with your guitar, and quite another to have it performed by four people. For me, it's always trial and error.
