Herbie Hancock

It’s not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

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

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

The spirit of Jazz is the spirit of openness.

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

The true artform is being a human being.

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.

I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

It doesn’t matter all that much. It’s just that when you’re playing, Stephane, you’ve got both Chaput and me backing you, but when I’m soloing I’ve only got one guitar behind me!

The Blues? It’s the mother of American music. That’s what is is – the source.

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

There’s a lot of recreational Jazz going on, where cats learn a particular style and become sharks on somebody else’s language.

I don’t try to please when I play. I try to cure.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable.

You can’t seperate modern jazz from rock or from rhythm and blues – you can’t seperate it. Because that’s where it all started, and that’s where it all come from – that’s where I learned to keep rhythm – in church.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

I’ve never thought the blues was a matter of copying other people. The blues singer should sing songs about his own life. And once the ball got rolling, I felt confident enough to do that as well as cover other people’s songs, and the tributes. You’ve got to think about representing your own life in the music, and for me that meant bringing in an element of jazz; I was brought up on jazz, it was my father’s work, it was in the house.

One of the reasons we’re here is to be a part of this process of exchange.

Men have died for this music. You can’t get more serious than that.

Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing even if it does take them 15, 20 years.