Laurence Fishburne Quotes

If you can play well in the studio, you can play well on stage.

There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

Phish is such a good band; they just make stuff up as a jam band.

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.

There's no substitute for live work to keep a band together.

The best practice you can get is on the bandstand, but in between gigs I feel I have to stay in shape.

Hey, look at this guy Kenny G. with his thing, walking up and down the aisles of the concert hall and running off the stage and playing the same time. It's old hat!

I think it's really, really good for me to be on stage once a year. It keeps your chops good. There's nothing else like it.

Jam Cruise is actually a comfortable place for me. My jamming skills and my improvisational skills have improved immensely as I've gone more solo, because I've had this opportunity.

Technique is the basis of every pursuit. If you're a sportsman or you're a singer or a swimmer, well that comes under sport but you have to develop a basic technique to know what you're doing at any given time.

People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before.

Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now.

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.

The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar... whatever it is.

In some ways, jazz is the most precise of art forms and the loosest in the sense that it's all about improvisation, but the musicianship required is kind of insane. To actually play with real jazz musicians is a different level of musicianship that almost has no equal in any other form of music in the world.

I love to play smaller crowds with the Rhythm Kings.

You just can't walk into a venue, sit behind your drums, and expect to play a great show. It'll never happen.

You need better technique than I have to play jazz, but what you have to do is the same thing, isn't it?

I knew that acting is like anything - you learn from doing it.

I'm kind of a feel player. I'll stretch out before a show a bit and do some playing, but that's about it. I'm not one of these 10-hour-a-day playing guys.

I can't even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.

My main goal is to connect with the crowd. I leave room for improv. Whatever happens, happens. When I bring my band with me, it turns into the Craig Robinson comedy dance party.

As far as practicing is concerned, I usually try to do one to two hours a day. It isn't good to practice too much, or your playing becomes too mechanical.

I always tell people that, just to be a bad jazz musician, you have to be better than most musicians. The worst jazz musicians are normally better than most musicians, because you have to know so much.