John Hench Quotes

The main three components are the blues, improvisation - which is some kind of element that people are trying to make it up - and swing, which means even though they're making up music, they're trying to make it up together. It feels great, like you're having a great conversation with somebody.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other's ideas.

Even though I have often recorded alone, I still feel the best music is made by musicians playing off each other.

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

The music has a better feeling when you're responding to what's going on. Music is like playing handball, playing catch with someone, not playing golf. Everywhere the ball bounces is where you respond to it.

The whole idea of jazz came about was the interpretation of the human dialogue, trading fours. When someone's soloing and someone picks up the solo and plays it back at 'em, it was the imitation of the human dialogue. It was how people spoke, through music.

There is no roles. No one is keeping any roles. The drummer is also answering everybody and everything. So it is a constant conversation and communication between musicians on an extremely high level with extremely valuable material, motifs, and melodies.

My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music.

I use a lot of tunings because I listen to a lot of jazz.

Jazz music is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm.

I find Indian music very funky. I mean it's very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it's the only other school on the planet that develops improvisation to the high degree that you find in jazz music. So we have a lot of common ground.

When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly.

The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

Louis Armstrong playing trumpet on the Judgment Day.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

I think I came across Cecil Taylor a bit later, in 65 or 66. That really impressed me - Cecil Taylor is an amazing character... Both his music and the way he approaches the instrument are astonishing.

Bernstein grew up in my building in New York. He's a very, very fine player. When he was a kid, he came by to find out what was going on in the world of jazz.

I think that people should learn about that. In most music, there's one way that you do something, and that's the only way. In jazz, it's a lot different.

Jazz is not the kind of music you are going to learn to play in three or four years or that you can just get because you have some talent for music.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

The first thing is, jazz is one of the few things to let you know that there is a God and there is a creation.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

Jazz is a music of great achievements but speed and chops serve a different function in jazz.

As far as other instrumentalists, I used to love mellow sax players like Paul Desmond. I love piano.