Herbie Hancock

The true artform is being a human being.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I’m a husband and a father.

Music is the tool to express life – and all that makes a difference.

Creativity shouldn’t be following radio; it should be the other way around.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

When you make a sound, it carries on to infinity. Sound is a vibration. Vibration is energy. All of that survives in space long after we’re dead. When I walk on stage at the Wiener Staatsoper, I can feel the footsteps of Chopin and Rachmaninov.

Blues is to Jazz what yeast is to bread; without it, it’s flat.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be Jazz.

Music gives us a lot of things and it only wants one thing back… your attention.

This be an empty world without the blues.

Music is to the soul what water is to the body.

You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.

Anytime you strike the drums, you have to be aware that you’re creating a musical event.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

The high note is not the only thing.

I remember going to sleep many nights with a Gibson catalog, dreaming about getting a Les Paul. I finally did, with a loan from my Dad. It’s a really heavy instrument. But it plays like butter. I met Les backstage at a show once. Jeff Beck made me play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ for Les, which was a little embarrassing. He changed history, big-time.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.

Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.