Brian McKnight

I’m probably the furthest from being romantic that you’ve ever seen; I’m not even close to being romantic in any way until I have to be.

I’ve always wanted to be a stand-up comic on some levels as well and I know I can play and sing but when people see me and say, “I didn’t know you were so funny… You’re like a real entertainer,” that’s what I like more than all the other accolades.

Whenever I fill out the job description I put ‘songwriter’, never ‘singer’ or ‘artist.’ Singers come and go.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

I don’t care how small the game. I want to win.

People don’t like when you point out to them and remind them that they’re not very smart.

The expression of freedom that is Jazz improvisation mirrors the ethos of the best parts of society.

My singing evolved with a feeling of intense relaxation, always using my diaphram and breathing specifically through my nose.

It is Jazz’s very nature to change, to develop and adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

The fact that an artist is experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in it together.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

When you just get mixed up and there’s too much going on, then it’s time to pick up your guitar.

I loved Billie Holiday more than any other person other than myself on the stage.

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

Jazz is a sideways glance at music. It’s like being an architect, knowing the basis of design but understanding that the façade can be whatever you dream. I’m a free person. I don’t want to be tied down.

And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they’re here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.

If you follow your passions, you’ll never work a day in your life.

Being so inescapably a part of it, I’ll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels and that’s too bad.

During these years I began to feel an increasing dissatisfaction with the relations of the music-loving public and the living composer. It seemed to me that we composers were in danger of working in a vacuum.

I think the one thing that I’ve learned is that you cannot predict what’s going to happen. You can’t sit back and try to figure out what people want or leave it up to them to decide. When we all started in this business we would dictate to the audience what was great and they picked up on that based on the fact that we believed that it was great. But that’s all changed. What’s happened in the last ten years or so because is that the technology now means that everyone with a computer can make music and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

Jazz musicians are the only workers who will put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.