Brian McKnight

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 used to play pianos in bars. You know in hotels, you’d see guys playing piano with a snifter? That was me, with a painted-on mustache. I was about 15.

I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.

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

When the label came to me to say, ‘would you like to do another record,’ I said, ‘Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let’s do it.’ And that was pretty much it… I never stopped writing, it’s just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.

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.

We recorded to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records.

The hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know: You feel this, you play this.

We don’t talk music. We just play.

My music is Jazz.

I wanted to do the music, but not at the expense of being happy.

I think that it is important to try to sound like someone, especially early in your development.

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

It is this tendency to play with manic enthusiasm on every possible occasion that distinguishes the amateur Jazz musician from the professional.

I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.

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

Jazz has the ability to absorb and transform influences from diverse musical styles.

I don’t want to sing anything that doesn’t come real.

Nothing else will ever capture the democratic process in sound as perfectly as Jazz.

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

Music should not have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that is required to sound like jazz.