Brian Blade

All music is beautiful.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don’t have to worry about anything.

I like what I hear other guys doing, but the thing that really attracts me is melodic playing.

I’m just trying to create context for me to improve my musicianship.

Despite the fact I’m a professional performer, it’s true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

I think you have to leave a lot to the imagination!

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

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

I got a chance to listen to and watch Thelonious Monk and his quartet play two shows a night, for six weeks. It was a great education. There was my university, man.

For me, the Les Paul is the greatest rock ‘n’ roll guitar of all time. If you’re not playing a Gibson guitar and you’re playing this kind of music, whether it’s punk, metal or anything grounded in rock ‘n’ roll, you’re not really doing it right. I don’t think professionally I’d every play anything else. Gibson, thank you for making greatest guitars ever.

My music had roots which I’d dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.