Keith Jarrett

Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.

Your own music comes out of your head and emotions, but it’s not etched in your system.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

The way I think about the practicing, it is my undercover work.

If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it?

If I’m not a jazz player all the time, I’ve at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.

All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.

Practice as if you are the worst, play as if you are the best!

I am attracted to Jazz music for the idea of being in the moment and communicating to people spontaneously.

Apparently Jazz is now considered high art and the average person has trouble understanding it.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

People will always need love, romance, a tender touch and really personal and deeply felt music.

Master your instrument, master the music and then forget all that and just play.

Back in college, when I got kicked out of school, I was still in school, I’d just written the song that got me my record deal. If I hadn’t gotten kicked out of school I wouldn’t be where I am now. Three months after that, I got my record deal and the rest is history.

Jazz is a work in progress. We’ll be defining traditions in Jazz for 200-300 years.

Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijuana, and will expire on cocaine.

When the label came to me to say, ‘would you like to do another record,’ I said, ‘Well I got these sixteen songs sitting here, so let’s do it.’ And that was pretty much it… I never stopped writing, it’s just the way that the business is now; you just try to find a different model.

If you want to play somebody’s music, you’d better go into his house.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.