Brian McKnight

I thought that true love was a just fairytale but I have it and it’s pretty amazing.

I think when my brother (Claude who founded vocal sextet Take Six) got his deal and I saw him on the Grammys that was when I said, ‘oh, you know what? If he can do it then maybe I can do too’ and that’s when I really focused on trying to make it in this business.

In my family on my mother’s side we’re all church musicians first so I don’t remember a time when we weren’t doing something musical. My brothers and I sang in a little quartet, my aunts and uncles sang and my grandfather was a minister of music in our church, so walking and talking was like doing music for us.

I’ll always write music. Whether I release a record, whether I let the public hear it or not, I’m always writing music.

I decided I am not going to say things I do not mean anymore.

Jazz is about improvisation and the moment in time, doing it this way now and you’ll never do it this way twice.

In my world, the first thing I reach for is the sound.

If I can’t feel it, I don’t want to sing it.

To play without passion is inexcusable.

Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists.

I have a sense of the importance of music and how powerful it is to bring people together.

Jazz is a feeling more than anything else.

Jazz music just resonates with the frequency of me.

What kills me is that everybody thinks I like Jazz.

Music isn’t just learning notes and playing them. You learn notes to play the music of your soul.

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.

Jazz is very much alive. Everywhere I go there’s a new generation of musicians playing Jazz music.

Check out the albums, … Check out the live performances. That’s the reality of it all. Music is such an energizing thing.

It’s very difficult for me to dislike an artist. No matter what he’s creating, the fact that he’s experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in a brotherhood of some kind… we’re in it together.

For most dates I was paid the sum of $1 per hr and they always tipped me at the end of the night.

A great thing about being a musician is you don’t stop until the day you die.