Zitat des Tages von Pat Metheny:
It's more about conception and touch and spirit and soul than whether my hardware was in place.
I hate the way chorus boxes sound.
Someone who knew me when I was 14 said I was the oldest 14-year-old on the planet. Now I'm a 14-year-old who is 60.
My older brother Mike is an excellent trumpet player. By the time he was 12, he was playing around Kansas City in classical situations. He was already an amazing talent.
I can't really say enough about Chris Potter. He is one of the greatest musicians I have ever known, and every second I have been on the band stand with him has been an absolute pleasure.
Listening is the key to everything good in music.
I think I have a basic sound aesthetic that is in most of what I do.
The reality of music itself, which is the fabric of life for me, is where most of my attention is.
What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity.
I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about jazz.
One of the things jazz has always excelled at is translating the reality of the times through its musical prism.
There are some musicians who are talented and see themselves as some kind of natural geniuses or something because of a certain amount of natural ability. But that is often rarely the case over the long term.
For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.
I realized that equipment really had little to do with why I sound like the way I sound.
I was able to work with the best musicians in Kansas City starting when I was really young.
The first thing I learned was the theme from Peter Gunn.
I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted.
I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times.
I think I represent a more left-wing view of what jazz is.
From 1962 to 1965, the guitar became this icon of youth culture, thanks mostly to the Beatles.
The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.
Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.
I used to love going and playing jam sessions, doing things spontaneously. I can't do that anymore. Everything you do is documented, nothing is casual anymore.
I'm triggering acoustic instruments. I'm literally beating, smacking, hitting, blowing, doing physical things. It's an incredibly exciting way to make music.
Whatever my recorded output is, it's a reflection of a general love of music.
No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.
I'm always trying to find 'connections' between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable.
I have three young kids and a great family. I love hanging out with them more than anything.
I love playing and working on music. It is something that I feel really lucky to be able to spend my life doing. And I don't sleep much!
There are musicians who go through their lives sort of shedding their skins. For me, I've always felt backward-compatible to Version 1.0.
I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.
I would always contend that talent is an element, but over the long run, ultimately, a minor part of it all; it is mostly hard work.
