Keith Jarrett

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

I’m my own most merciless critic onstage.

When you’re on stage you have a very strange knowledge of what the audience is. It isn’t exactly a sound – it’s a hum, like the streets.

I grew up with the piano. I learned its language as I learned to speak.

Once we’re inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

Jazz is one of the least learnable art forms.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.

When we were at the Apollo, Holiday was a block away. I asked her for her autograph.

If you want to be a musician, study your craft. Study music.

I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.

Art [Blakey] would take young people with a potential and help them develop a voice as a player and as a writer.

All I play is truth and emotion.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

He’s not a performer, he’s not a composer, he’s not even a musician, but Norman Granz is Mr. Jazz.

What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

Risk is at the heart of Jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

It isn’t where you came from, its where you’re going that counts.

I don’t want to sing anything that doesn’t come real.