Brian McKnight

I am a writer – that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.

Back in college, when I got kicked out of school, I was still in school, I’d just written the song that got me my record deal. If I hadn’t gotten kicked out of school I wouldn’t be where I am now. Three months after that, I got my record deal and the rest is history.

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

I’m not sure if Donald Trump is the answer, but I do think that the departure from traditional politicians may be the answer. I’m not sure if he is, but I like the idea of getting away from career politicians.

It is great to have your own label; you can cultivate your own artists… I’ve worked with pretty much everyone I wanted to.

I’ve been a jazz artist playing pop and R&B my entire career.

I learned to play guitar on my lying back while I was bed-ridden. I only thought to record the songs because sometimes I would I couldn’t remember what I had just done. Eventually I started singing, because I thought if I sang it that would help to remember even more. But I wasn’t trying to sing. And then one day-this is really weird -I just wrote a song. It came out at a rapid rate and I recorded it and I listened back to it and was like ‘Wow, it’s a tune’.

To get the music the way you want it, there’s a lot of work involved.

There’s only two types of music. The stuff you can write down and the stuff you can’t. The stuff that you can’t write down is Jazz. Everything else is Polka.

One of the things I like about Jazz, kid, is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?

We might as well swing boys, because Stravinsky cuts us all.

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.

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

In Kansas City joints ran 9pm-5am. Pay was a $1.25 a night but somebody special like Count Basie could command $1.50.

Jazz is a sideways glance at music. It’s like being an architect, knowing the basis of design but understanding that the façade can be whatever you dream. I’m a free person. I don’t want to be tied down.

Music should always be an adventure.

I’ve always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

The first time I went to Paris, it just felt like I was home. I didn’t question it.

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.