Mike Stern

The deeper you get into the music allows the ability to appreciate art and all other forms of expression.

Sometimes there are no gigs, but the main thing is still the music.

I want people to walk away with the same joy, hope and love that I put into my music.

The beauty of Jazz is that it’s malleable. People address it to suit their own personalities.

You have to pack as much as you can in an hour or 70 minutes. This time around it was 15 songs, so it was a challenge to get them all the right length so you could get them all on.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.

I bought my first electric guitar when I moved to Memphis; a Gibson with a DeArmond pickup which I used with a small Gibson amplifier.

Vocalists must study music and know everything an instrumentalist needs to know.

Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists.

Rather than say I play Jazz, I simply say I play music.

The true musician plays what he/she hears. That cannot be a mistake.

As long as you’ve got your horn in your mouth, you’re developing.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

I don’t like to hear someone put down Dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.

I’ve always depended upon my own melodic instinct, instead of scale like formulas.

There is two kinds of music, the good and the bad. I play the good kind.

If you understood everything I say, you’d be me!

I like chords that are very lush with all the lush parts taken out.