Pat Metheny Quotes

I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.

So I went into jazz and performed in jazz clubs all over the country.

I listened to classical music. I listened to jazz. I listened to everything. And I started becoming interested in the sounds of jazz. And I went to a concert of Jazz at the Philharmonic when we lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and I saw Charlie Parker play and Billie Holiday sing and Lester Young play, and that did it. I said, 'That's what I want to do.'

Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?

I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

Grover Washington was my main influence, and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

But sometimes that title 'jazz' can vex people who think they know exactly what jazz always is and will be.

I didn't really think I liked jazz all that much until I was about 18. That's when the freedom and possibilities of it began to seem appealing to me.

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

If you really dissect hip-hop you will find a whole lot of Charles Mingus, Ron Carter, Ahmad Jamal, a lot of classic jazz samples in there.

I think Wes Montgomery is the greatest jazz guitarist that ever lived.

I listen to jazz mainly. Mainstream jazz.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

When I was 12, I began listening to John Coltrane and I developed a love for jazz, which I still have more and more each year.

After I exhausted the blues thing, I got into jazz.

Sometimes you need to stand with your nose to the window and have a good look at jazz. And I've done that on many occasions.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

Growing up, I was very much interested in jazz music.

Bill Evans is a real serious jazz pianist who, in my book, crossed over boundaries in terms of color. He used the piano as his canvas.

What I believe to be jazz is constructed and improvised music which is in the air right now. But I don't think that's most people's definition of jazz, you know? We don't know what we're talking about, because we don't know the definition.

I never studied jazz technically; I just know and love the music.