Keith Jarrett

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

When you’re on stage you have a very strange knowledge of what the audience is. It isn’t exactly a sound – it’s a hum, like the streets.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

If I’m not a jazz player all the time, I’ve at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

I’m my own most merciless critic onstage.

Your own music comes out of your head and emotions, but it’s not etched in your system.

If you dig it, do it. If you dig it a lot, do it again.

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.

Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

For me, music and life are all about style

I don’t do something because I think it’ll sell 30 million albums. I couldn’t care less if it sells just one.

I try to teach by example and not force ideas on a young musician. We’re here to be part of a process of exchange.

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

The true beauty of music is that it connects people.

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.

I don’t think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

The majority of people mistakenly feel they don’t need a live musical experience.

The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.