Dianne Reeves Quotes

I like messing around, and I like working with artists who I respect.

I spend a lot of time working as a painter and in my studio I go from upstairs where I paint to downstairs where I play and record, so I get this thing crossing over.

When you're an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you're really more focused on yourself. So while everybody's out touring, I'm working on records.

I'm never happier than when I'm being creative, whether that's with Coldplay or other artists. I just love being in the studio.

If I'm on form and I'm not being bothered too much by mental problems or whatever, I can whip out something good. That's why I've done quite a few overdubs for Tina Turner and things like that, because even before she made this comeback I said yes to her, just because I love Tina Turner.

If you end up spending more time in the studio than you do on the road, that's not a good balance for me. Because I think when you're in the studio, you need to come off the road and go in the studio and that's when you're applying your best. That's when you've got the best attitude, best energy, all that stuff.

I love the magic of the studio.

I'm always gonna be all over my CD the most, of course. My talent is my talent. I ain't really tripping off no ego; I just like to make good music with good people.

I don't think of work between albums. Of course, I go through regular life and I live and I experience different things, good and bad, and it does help me, but I don't think about writing or what I'm gonna do with whatever's going on while I'm going through it.

I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't.

I'm so hard on myself that when I'm in the studio, I'll write 10 songs and only use one. So those nine songs that are left over, I always think, 'Where could these go? Who could they be for?'

My influences change all the time; they have to remain current, because they're the things that capture your imagination and make you want to go into the studio.

When we make records, it's hard to pinpoint one thing that inspires a record. It's usually a number of different things that lead to inspiration or wanting to write something down and share it with someone.

I just to put out the best records I can and perform the best I can.

That's how I make work. Along the way, I take notes, I read about history and popular culture. Sometimes I act out things in the studio. I go back to my mother's hair salon so I can hear three voices going all at once. I pull inspiration from everything.

There's no better feeling than just going in and just working with someone and what comes out is something that the world knows about.

I'm a producer. I'm a musician. And my job is to come in and, you know, put - you know, I treat all of the artists that I work with, like, you know, the way da Vinci was looking at Mona Lisa, you know, there's an interesting backdrop.

Great songs come out of people's bedrooms; they come out of studios; there's no formula for it.

I started writing out all of my feelings, and people asked me, 'Have you ever thought of recording your music?' It was something I'd always thought of, but I'd never really had the confidence.

I'm getting in the studio with everybody I've always wanted to work with. That's the amazing thing.

I like to choreograph and create and design the costumes and do it all and then step back and watch it and then move on to the next project.

I'm just like anybody else: I have stuff to do in the day, whether that's writing a song or recording a song. I try to treat everything I do as just work.

You don't realize how beautiful an idea is until you do it with other people. There's this really shimmery, awesome thing when you start finishing a song - where the song just starts writing itself.

There's the drums, the music, the melodies, the lyrics, the production, the artwork: there are so many elements to making an album, and the drumming is just a very small fraction of what I focus on.

I try to listen to as much as possible. I know some people really try to avoid music when they're writing and recording, but I am very inspired by so many different musicians, and I need to learn.