I just want to get my music out and make sure that it's heard in the right way.
I'm never gonna stop music, it's like air to me.
I am never going to give music up.
It's entertaining to watch somebody break my music down or explain what he thinks I was thinking during the process of making these records. Because... he has no idea.
Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find it gets in the way.
I'm a huge fan of Eighties music.
I want to make hand-held music, undiminished by the need to make everybody in the world listen at once. The goal is to ride into the sunset, stereo blasting, and all of what's got you worried will disappear in the rear view mirror!
I work very closely with my publisher and just give them tons and tons of music, and then they link that with different songwriters and stuff. I'm basically a workaholic. So, I figured I might as well just start working outside.
I'm not a big equipment guy; I think that people are a little bit shocked by that. I really don't care about gear in general. I care about people and their intentions to make music - it doesn't matter what equipment you have.
Somewhere along the line, music became 'content'... It's my full intention to bring it back to music again! I believe in the power of song.
High school music teachers... nobody makes a living off it.
Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized and there's just no outlet, there's no venue for it, in terms of media.
Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.
Music is just kind of an expression of who I am. It's what I do.
Jazz music by its very nature is just a conglomerate of a lot of different kinds of music.
Jazz music should be inclusive. Smooth jazz to me rules out a certain kind of drama and a certain tension that I think all music needs. Especially jazz music, since improvising is one of the cornerstones of what jazz is. And when you smooth it out, y...
All the music that I've made in the past I've believed in. I think some of it has been more commercially successful than others, but it wasn't premeditated.
I didn't try to think what my audience wanted and then make the music accordingly. I made the music and hoped that as many people liked it as possible.
Music is like an open sky. You know it's out there... and there you are.
I think 'Horace Silver' was actually the first live jazz group I ever heard back when I was a kid in St. Louis. So along with most players of my generation, I have a real affection for the music of 'Horace Silver.'
I have pretty ecumenical tastes. I'm interested in a lot of different kinds of music, so I don't listen with a jaundiced ear to music because it's in a certain category, whether it's country or opera or hip-hop or bebop or whatever it is.
