Charlie Haden Quotes

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

N.Y. hip-hop is ok, but we gotta become brave again; we have to be brave enough and do something new - that's what New York is about... New.

I'm definitely a risk-taker with my music.

I think music needs danger; it needs risk.

Pushing the envelope, musically speaking, is what needs to be done to rise to the top.

I always wanted to create my own musical world. That takes time and must be earned, and it does mean sometimes confronting the expectations of the audience.

All I ever wanted to do, personally, was bring something new to what I loved: the thing that I loved the most, the music that I loved the most.

To be able to take music and do something as profoundly original as what we did with the Allman Brothers, you've got to put some time into it.

You could say that everything the musicians have learned and known over the years, all of their technical resources, are in a dialogue with the things they are discovering every time, as if it was the first time.

To create something new is both thrilling and excruciating at the same time. It's great to have all these choices in front of you, and to have the writers in the room so you know exactly what they meant. But the downside is you want so badly not to screw it up!

Brian Eno developed systems to keep himself on edge and to keep himself in a position where he's generating ideas.

I love originating shows and originating songs - there is nothing better than being the first one to get to do a song.

I'm dead serious about my craft and just really serious about making music in itself. I take pride in making songs and albums where no two songs sound alike. That's the challenge and that's what it's all about, to keep it original and fresh and funky.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity.

I'd rather play here in this small bar and just do a good show. Because it's fun and there's no expectations, it's encouragement to be different, do something new.

I go into the whole composer thing quite open to keep on going and keep on trying different things because you never know... the next idea you have might be the one.

Any new ideas go into PiL. My inspiration is everything that the human being gets up to. I don't listen to any music when I'm in PiL-zone, because influences can poison your well. Otherwise, I listen to anything.

I make records with an open mind, I always have.

All the blues greats took chances and developed their own style. They didn't copy.

Never try to make the same record twice, even when people are screaming for the same sound.

I think people need to see Prince live to really understand how remarkable he is. He has always been inspiring because he is never afraid to break rules or barriers or invent something new - and if you love fashion, then you need to be able to do that.

The drive to create music that is pure is my highest priority. Sometimes I'll get extremely technical, and other times I'll just kind of go with the gods of music.

I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.

I think that the things that are interesting sometimes, when you're striving for a sound, you just get it wrong 'cause of your own limitations. That's when you get something kind of original.