Joe Chambers

I write songs about real things… The subject dictates the mood and it goes from there, really.

I’m very shy, and I shy away from people. But the moment I hit the stage, it’s a different feeling I get nerve from somewhere; maybe it’s because it’s something I love to do.

I haven’t a great Jazz band and I don’t want one.

I always wanted to play the piano, and jazz appealed to me.

Silence is what makes music sexy. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought.

I can’t understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out and look at it?

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

While many attempts have been made to define Jazz, what’s the point really. Jazz is to be experienced – period.

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

I’ve always had a deep love of live performance, it’s when I feel most alive.

It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.

No one remembers who wrote the tune, putting pen to paper in some lonely place. They remember who had the hit.

There is a time where you’re beyond yourself, better than your technique, better than your usual ideas.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.