Keith Jarrett Quotes

I wasn't allowed to grow as an artist. My albums were nicer to look at than to listen to.

Sometimes I like them artificial and sometimes I like them real. And the reason is because sometimes I like a real close sound. And I like a very specific snare sound and I can't get that in the big room.

There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument.

I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.

The Beatles production is often so 'perfect' that it sounds computerized. 'Sgt. Pepper' really does sound like it took four months to make.

I think people are tired of fake music, man. And there's a lot of it. Technology has reached the point where any boob can walk into a studio and with a little AutoTuning you can have a hit song. I think it's pathetic.

What gets people into trouble with records now is that they want to build something up without substantial musical ideas. Without that as a foundation, you can add all the layers of sound you want - it's still going to sound like a mess.

GusGus records are flawless.

I grew up having an ear for what was hot and was not - what sounds good in music and what doesn't.

I hate re-recording. I like singing, but I don't like recording a song over and over, making it too perfect.

Iowa,' for me, I hated doing that album - it wasn't a good experience for me.

People said my records were 'funky' and 'muddy,' but the truth is they were just demos.

There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed.

I've gotten bored with jazz to the point where I wouldn't mind something bad happening. Slapping hurts, but at some point it'll wake you up. I feel like jazz needs a big-ass slap.

Lyrics are weak, like clock radio speakers.

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

Ah, current music. What would that be? Ah, really, a lot of it sounds defective to me. It makes me restless.

[Sam Phillips] laughed at me. I just didn't like the way I Walk The Line sounded to me. I didn't know I sounded that way. And I didn't like it. I don't know. But he said let's give it a chance, and it was just a few days until - that's all it took to take off.

You should hear me on my own. It's horrendous.I saw Deep Purple live once and I paid money for it and I thought, Geez, this is ridiculous.

I can write, boy, I can write. That's what I do. The trouble is that it's too bloody easy for people, that's why music is in the sorry state that it is. Any idiot, actors mainly, can go in there, sing a chord, bang on a machine... I'm not objecting to that but when people get at me for trying to say something in a rock 'n' roll mode it's as if I'm the freak.

A piano is a machine, but you've got ivory and there's weight behind the keys and you have this really - you feel the resonance in the instrument, you feel the vibration in the pedal. I mean, these a still very crude.

It's just rock and roll. A lot of times we get criticized for it. A lot of music papers come out with: 'When are they going to stop playing these three chords?' If you believe you shouldn't play just three chords it's pretty silly on their part. To us, the simpler a song is, the better, 'cause it's more in line with what the person on the street is.

And it's a - it's a term that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion, style, elitism, satanism, and, everything that's rotten about rock 'n' roll.

You might perhaps like to see the few canvases I was able to save from the bailiffs and the rest, since I thought you might be so good as to help me a little, as I am in quite a desperate state, and the worst is that I can no longer even work.