John McLaughlin

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

Indian music is very soulful and the only other school that develops improv to the high degree you find in Jazz.

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

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

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

Let the music speak for itself.

I like to know for whom I’m writing – it makes the composition easier to do.

Ah music… a magic beyond all we do here!

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.

I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to. You hear musicians playing with great fluidity and complete conception early on, and you don’t have that ability. I didn’t. I had to know what I was doing. And ultimately it turned out that these people weren’t able to carry their thing very far. I found myself being more attracted to artists who have developed through the years and become better and deeper musicians.I believe in things that are developed through hard work.

Look for the one who’s not smiling and play to that person. Once you’ve got that person, you’ve got the whole club.

By and large Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.

Jazz has such great feeling and emotional content it really doesn’t require technical understanding.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one’s own.

It’s a matter of who would be right for each song. Mickey Hart for ‘All We Need is An Island’ – he’s the only guy I know who has Tahitian drums and every kind of drum on the planet.

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

Let your life be your music and let your music be your life.