Keith Jarrett Quotes

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

As long as there are musicians who have a passion for spontaneity, for creating something that's never been before, the art form of jazz will flourish.

What I love about jazz is the improvisation, the fact that you never know what's going to happen next.

I think of jazz as being homage through innovation. Don't quote that as a definition, but it comes pretty close.

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.

Jazz music is the power of now.

I was introduced to jazz, and that's become a basic concern and passion of mine ever since.

Jazz musicians are the coolest people on the planet. Can I have some cool?

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.

I'm not a big jazz fan.

Be-bop wasn't developed in any deliberate way.

I don't play the traditional Charlie Parker songs. But I do improvise and I do create with my instrument, and that to me is jazz. But there are people who use the word 'jazz' only in a traditional sense, and they would be offended by that, and that's fine.

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

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.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

Theater is so ephemeral, and I love that.

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

If you don't have any Coltrane, 'A Love Supreme' will do it for you. It will explain everything. Even if you don't get it, it will still explain everything. That's how deep it is.

If the whole idea, in the original bebop days, was to get to soloing, then that's all it should be about.

I love playing jazz because I love the freedom you have to improvise. It has given me a feeling in my classical repertoire of creating the atmosphere of the here and now.

I think jazz is the foundation for a lot of great musicians, and then after that, you know, it's this broad expression of things that really have influenced and addressed your life.

The chief trouble with jazz is that there is not enough of it; some of it we have to listen to twice.

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.