Brian McKnight

It is great to have your own label; you can cultivate your own artists… I’ve worked with pretty much everyone I wanted to.

I thought that true love was a just fairytale but I have it and it’s pretty amazing.

I think they can co-exist. You don’t have to put one down for another. I’ve been bitten by the acting bug, and where it takes me, it won’t take away from the music.

A fine timepiece is part of dressing like a gentleman. When I first made a little money, I bought my first watch which was a Rolex Daytona. It was just one of those things that said I was successful.

He knows I rip him off every day. He’s the godfather for me. Nobody can say they aren’t influenced by what Stevie Wonder has done.

I am at my core a singer/songwriter a la James Taylor or a la Billy Joel. It’s not that I don’t want to work with people, but I do just love doing my own thing.

Jazz has an aesthetic intimacy, a romantic transference.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition. If you don’t understand what it’s about, you’re depriving yourself of being really able to communicate this poem.

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.

I’ll always write music. Whether I release a record, whether I let the public hear it or not, I’m always writing music.

I’ve seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if they think that I’m that good, thank them. Thank God for them. But I don’t think so.

A wise man practices slowly; but a wiser man practices even slower.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

I hate to think of Jazz as black and white, something political.

That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.

I think that those elements – light and sound – are beyond democratic. They’re into the creative part of life.

Jazz to me is a living music. It’s a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.

Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument.

Every time I see a musician – it doesn’t matter what age – that inspires me, there’s always a secret little wish that maybe we’ll play together, because that’s how I learn and grow and so forth, you know. But hopefully there’s a lot more.

Jazz fans love Miles and I love him for a myriad of reasons, but the overviews are always too simplistic.