Herbie Hancock

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

I try stuff. I synthesize what’s of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.

I think there’s a great beauty to having problems. That’s one of the ways we learn.

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

Music is the most fantastic drug there is!

There’s such a cynicism about the phrase ‘I laughed all the way to the bank.’ It’s as though money is what you’re doing, rather than playing music. If you’re playing a money game, why not get into banking?

Life is not about finding our limitations, it’s about finding our infinity.

Music is what feelings sound like.

Pop doesn’t really look back. It can’t. What makes pop work is simplicity.

My improvisations are a beguiling mixture of the vertical and the horizontal.

Miles Davis is one who writes songs when he plays.

I was never interested in singing in the church or school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.

In this trumpet I hear our icons and the sound of the future.

You can’t go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.

With the birth of the first artist, came the inevitable afterbirth… the first critic

Music can’t save the world, but can make one a little calmer.

Playing the guitar is like telling the truth – you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don’t have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don’t have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It’s you.

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.

Music gives us a lot of things and it only wants one thing back… your attention.