Brian McKnight

Every little kid that steps on the court or the field has aspirations to go pro. I think being a pro basketball player is the best job. The thing I had to realize was that I can’t do every dream that I have.

I’m not like a legend that – so I’m sort of in the middle in this sort of gray area where, you know, I’m creating music, and I’m not saying there isn’t an audience, because there is; because all of those people go out and spend $80 to $150 on a concert ticket.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don’t. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

I started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.

Music used to be essential and meaningful, but now it’s disposable.

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

Music must be an innovation.

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

An orchestra can become as familiar and reliable an instrument as a well-known, well-worn piano.

I love songs that are very autobiographical.

I’m trying to get people to see that we are our brother’s keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.

I expect the audience to come up to my level.

Jazz is so incestuous that it’s starting to kill itself.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about, but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

If you want to be a musician, study your craft. Study music.

I do Jazz, Blues, Country and so forth. I do them all like a good utility man.

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

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.

It’s easy in music to tell what’s good. It’s hard to tell what’s bad.