Chick Corea

You don’t have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.

My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don’t want to be a master. When I’m learning something, I’m in my element.

It’s difficult for me to dislike an artist, no matter what he’s creating.

Miles Davis was a part of my life from 1947 on. I was born in 1941 and I first heard him in 1947 on a 78 rpm. And then I followed his career, starting with his first solo album in 1951. He was an icon and inspiration and a mentor to me.

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.

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.

Music is the most fantastic drug there is!

The sign of a mature musician is knowing what not to play.

A Jazz performance centers upon the process of creation. The final objective is not only the finished product, but the path and process taken towards it.

I guess you can look at me, and tell I’m the old man. My name is BB King.

Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of half-fast.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

Well if I could play like Wynton Marsalis, I wouldn’t play like Wynton.

You give up your own personality when you imitate somebody.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

I thought Eric Clapton was good. He still is. Not only is he good – he’s rock’s #1 guitarist, and he plays blues better than most of us.

There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.

Musicians tell me, if what I’m doing is right, they should never have gone to school.