Marcus Miller

If you listen to Donny Hathaway, he had a lot of jazz elements in the way he sang, … For me, the two styles borrow from each other so much that sometimes it’s hard for me to make a distinction. When you hear Lalah sing the combination, that’s when she really shines – when she’s allowed to dip into her jazz when she wants to and then get soulful and do the R ‘n’ B thing.

I’m on some singer’s record date for a demo and I get a note to call Miles Davis. Of course, I didn’t believe it, but I wasn’t going to take a chance by not calling, and it was Miles. He said, ‘I’ve got a session in an hour over at Columbia, can you make it’

In this era it’s harder for musicians to get together, … Back in the ’80s, we were all at the clubs, you ran into people all the time. Now, everybody’s kind of in their own room with their computers. I use making an album as an opportunity to connect with musicians.

That’s a great thing about jazz. We leave it a little space so that we have the opportunity to go where the moment takes us

In order to be honest with myself, I have to reveal more of who I am. This is a part of the improv process.

People couldn’t give an F about how many cars you got any more. It’s about the way the music sounds, where you’re going, the experience you’re going to hanging out with your friends, the type clothes that you’re wearing – all of that’s art.

Look for the one who’s not smiling and play to that person. Once you’ve got that person, you’ve got the whole club.

The audience should feel they are hearing the future, arriving just on time.

Jazz means many things to many people, but it’s all about choices.

All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.

There is two kinds of music, the good and the bad. I play the good kind.

I’m not playing for other musicians. We’re trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We’ll keep him happy.

What I came back to is that jazz is a music to be played and not to be intellectualized on.

I’d take my guitar and play on the streets. A gospel song would get me a pat on the head. But a blues would get me a dime. So you see why I stuck with the blues.

The extreme dynamic and percussive possibilities of an acoustic guitar amplified through a bridge pickup have, over many years of performing, informed not only the way I play, but the way I write and sing too. My guitar taught me to sing in textures, from the roundest lingering harmonic to the sharpest snap of a pulled string. Being a percussion instrument as well as a melodic instrument, my guitar also teaches me about the relationship between rhythm and melody. Portable. Did I mention it also taught me about being portable?

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.

The guitar chose me.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

On my album Here, that’s the first time that I’ve really understood how I could put all the things that were happening in the world and in my life and in our lives as just human beings into one body that was just so powerful and really had a perspective. That was an opening for me and I think that naturally, there is just so much to talk about. I don’t see me getting quiet anytime soon.