Bobby McFerrin

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

Don’t worry, be happy!

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it’s in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance.

I am attracted to Jazz music for the idea of being in the moment and communicating to people spontaneously.

When you listen to a pianist, each notes should have an identity, each note should have a soul of its own.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it… for two days, the critics know it… three days, the public knows it.

You want the audience to feel what you’re doing.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

If you’ve only got one horn playing, I still want the sense of ensemble.

When rock music came in, I wasn’t bitter about it. I was puzzled.

While many attempts have been made to define Jazz, what’s the point really. Jazz is to be experienced – period.

Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.

Music does not come to you. You have to come to it and you’ll walk away with something you didn’t have before.

If it ain’t fun, I want no part of it man. That’s the reason I play.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

The way I think about the practicing, it is my undercover work.