John McLaughlin

All the music that was ever heard came from the inner silence in every musician.

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and be yawning your head off.

Only in spontaneity can we be who we truly are.

It’s not what you do, but the way you’re doing it and in the end that’s all that we have.

Music is born out of the inner sounds within a soul.

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Jazz stands for freedom.

I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

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.

I don’t have a definition of Jazz. You’re just supposed to know it when you hear it.

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

Music is like wine, the less you know about it the sweeter you like it. 

In order to complete your cycle, a musician needs to write; document what is going through your mind and where you are harmonically, theoretically, historically.

Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking… The new inventive phrases we make up to describe things – all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.

Find the best teachers, listen to the finest playing and try to emulate that. Be true to the music.

Even if you have some brilliant jazz ideas, it’s going to be difficult to get them across unless you have 1-a distinctive sound or 2- a loud sound. These are musts.

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.

If you’re gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.

Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it’s in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance.