John McNiel

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

In Jazz, improvisation isn’t a matter of just making any ol’ thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There’s no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

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

Bird said he worked as dishwasher at Onyx Club on 52nd St. in the early 1940s just to hear Art Tatum play.

Everything I’ve ever done was out of fear of being mediocre.

Composing makes me feel like I’ve finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.

Yeah, it’s more like playing what you think is appropriate for the moment, not forcing any particular style.

Jazz music is an aural souvenir of mankind’s attempt to express the intangible, the heart, the soul, through art.

I learn something new every day.

To play piano is a significant part of my life, my existence. It fulfills a very physical and spiritual need for me.

One minute we’re over here, the next minute we’re doing something completely different. But it’s interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn’t do with analog.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.

I sought some kind of freedom in music, in the promise of transcendence and the idea that the purity and the innocence of a mythical god could somehow deliver me from darkness.

You only get better by playing.

If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.