Brian McKnight

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.

I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.

The fans dictate to you when you’re done!

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

Stevie didn’t use the technology to drive the song. He used it to enhance. I use the tools to further my work, I don’t use my work to further the tools.

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? has no boundaries.

Jazz music is haunted by its own hungry ghosts.

I have no elitist concepts about Jazz. I would not be the musician I am today without experiencing invaluable music styles that are at the roots of African American black life and culture.

Anybody can write music of a sort. But touching the public heart is quite another thing.

I’ll be writing songs till I die. There’s just no question.

I love to hear the note sing.

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

For me, I started on a Les Paul and went through years of playing other guitars and just came back full circle to what was more natural to me.

There has always been a tension between Jazz as a commercial music and as an art form.

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.

Jazz – it takes passion to make it happen!

There is a time where you’re beyond yourself, better than your technique, better than your usual ideas.

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society to express yourself freely and creatively.

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