I knew a lot of my musicians used to take coke. I never saw them. They would hide it from me, so I wasn't really aware of it. Creatively, I don't think it was that great.
Sometimes, I think the way the music business has been destructive and the way the fans are been put through it and try to navigate through it, so much is so foreign to what musicians would actually want to do or what would be natural to them.
Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style.
If you look at the way people behave at shows, icons are now musicians; they are the people that we worship.
Music criticism should be to musicians what ornithology is to the birds.
Many jazz musicians affect a misunderstood-genius air when they play, which alienates the audience and breaks down the communications of the music. A musician's responsibility is to get as much of his art across as possible. Musicians used to be kept when only the rich could afford art, but now practically everyone can afford radios, stereo equipment, concert tickets, etc. A musician must learn to communicate to survive.
Rock musicians are consistent in their disdain and irreverent treatment of Jesus Christ.
They didn't dictate to me as to what kind of music that they wanted me to play or what tunes, what musicians that I was going to use. They let me do my thing. That's one reason I stayed there for twenty-eight years.
One of the best things about Kickstarter and crowdfunding and the collapse of the music business is a lot of artists like me have been forced to face our own weird mess about ourselves and what we thought it meant to become musicians.
To actually get together and make a band record feels like a bit of a big deal, and that can be quite daunting when you're musicians.
These people are artists. These people are musicians. They're taking it out and trying to express it that way.
As a producer, I like to bring in unexpected voices, unexpected musicians, like Watt and Joey Spampinato of NRBQ.
Musicians should not play music. Music should play musicians.
I always say that you should just listen to it and see what you think it sounds like it is. I don't think it should be labeled. Most musicians feel like that. No one wants to put their music in a category. But, I don't think it's all over the place. I don't go from metal to jazz, or anything crazy.
I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.
As musicians it's often difficult. You go to a dinner party and most people treat you like some kind of exotic animal and in a way like you don't have any problems and that it's all fantastic and glamorous and that you wake up in the morning, you kick the groupies out of bed, you roll onto the floor onto a needle, right, which fills you with a lovely substance, you roll into the gutter and you stare at the moon and out comes beautiful poetry. The fact of the matter is that that's nonsense. It's a lot of hard work.
I am constantly being told that I have been a big influence for many people, including other musicians.
Of course, you have to have a good reputation, especially as an artist, as a musician, so that other musicians would like to play with you.
So much of Jazz doesn't have an audience other than music students or musicians.
All the musicians that I know want to act.
