Pat Metheny

Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

It is Jazz’s very nature to change, to develop and adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a Jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

I can play all I know in eight bars.

I hear beauty and elegance combined with passion and fire.

People love us when we play what we want to play but we’re starving.

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

Anybody can write music of a sort. But touching the public heart is quite another thing.

Some twenty years ago, during the course of a memorable evening at the Stravinskys’ home in Los Angeles, the venerable maestro turned to me and said in no uncertain terms: ‘My dear, you should conduct your own music. All composers should conduct their own music!

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.

Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

You’ve got to learn your instrument.

The audience, they’re not professionals. They just love music. It isn’t necessary to play over their heads to be admired.

The people who really got me off were dealing with the musical potential of their instrument.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

To imitate someone is to insult them.