Jeff Beck

[Stratocaster vs Les Paul] It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things that you can distract and abuse. You can’t do that with a Les Paul. It’s too delicate. It’s got a very delicate tone; most people don’t ever realize that because they are plugged into monstrous amplifiers which completely, instantaneously covers up the unique sound quality it has. All those years of development go straight out the window when you overload the amp.

My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me. It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.

I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever.

A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.

I’m an experimenter. It’s rich because every album I’ve done, except for a couple of techno-y records, are different. Really you’ve got to hand it to the Fender Strat, because there are songs in that guitar. It’s a tool of great inspiration and torture at the same time because it’s forever sitting there challenging you to find something else in it, but it is there if you really search.

[on Django Reinhardt] By far the most astonishing guitar player ever … Django was quite superhuman, there’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going.

I would’ve loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn’t good enough.

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound.

Jazz is something you have to feel, something you have to live.

Live music is best! Make plans to get out and support your local Jazz scene.

Don’t settle for style. Succeed in substance.

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

All this is saying is, OK I see now, the ‘hood does not quite want Shirley Bassey yet, so let me still give them this. Crack Music was made after Diamonds. After black people were like, ‘I don’t know about this one.’ It was like me reaching too high for the cookie jar.

Jazz amounts to Blues, your unique sound and the elusive genius of improvisation.

Dance music-as I keep saying, you can dance to a windshield wiper… a windshield wiper that’s fairly steady gives you a beat and all you need is an out-of-tune playing ‘Melancholy Baby’ and you’ve got dance music.

I’ve had a lot of things to be proud of in my life, but none more than the Jazz festival.

If you dig it, do it. If you dig it a lot, do it again.

Sometimes I just think that there are more things to be said to make the audience understand what I’m trying to do more. When I’m singing, I don’t want you to just hear the melody. I want you to relive the story, because most of the songs have pretty good storytelling.