In Berlin I especially enjoyed the orchestral concerts, and I attended a large number of them. I formed the acquaintance of a good many musicians, several of whom spoke of my playing in high terms.
You hear it in the great musicians, whether it’s a drummer or a horn player or a guitar player – you hear them take those breaths. You can feel that there’s something they’re trying to tell you.
I think musicians are always very generous in promoting anything good they hear. It’s just kind of in our nature.
The income streams of musicians have all been upstreamed into the pockets of computer corporations. Sound recordings are little more than free crackerjacks inside every computer or cellphone that you buy.
I think, as musicians, our music should be who we are. Sometimes it’s not – it’s someone else’s. All heartfelt music and all honest music, it’s who we are. Of course, our upbringing has everything to do with it.
I’ve always considered music stores to be the graveyards of musicians.
Personally, I think young musicians need to learn to play more than one style. Jazz can only enhance the classical side, and classical can only enhance the jazz. I started out playing classical, because you have to have that as a foundation.
I felt I had an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of great soul musicians of the past, who made a lot of social and political commentary through their music.
The best part of touring is playing the shows. I mean, that is the point of touring, at least for me. I have been blessed in that I’ve always gotten to play with other good musicians.
In ‘Spinal Tap,’ there’s the fake historical quality of ‘Stonehenge.’ It’s something the musicians look at with a mystical reverence. In folk music, it’s the seriousness with which these people approach their ‘art.’
I grew up around electronic instruments. To me, the turntable is an electronic device. At the same time, I had access to drum machines and keyboards through my uncle; then track recorders into computers. At an early age, I was messing with computers more than most hip-hop musicians.
It’s hard to find five musicians who know what the other is going to do before they do it. And that’s what we had in GN’R.
Rooney was like marrying a high school sweetheart. And then you’re like, ‘I think we need some time to see other people,’ and those other people are new musicians. Starsystem is like a new marriage with new musicians.
Jazz stands for freedom. It’s supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don’t be a perfectionist – leave that to the classical musicians.
Thelonious Monk was one of the musicians I most connected with early on. I’m a huge Betty Carter fan, and the way that Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn grew immensely from the time they were young is so inspirational.
A lot of musicians aren’t proud; they’ll do other work, just to be able to play music. I guess that’s the way it’s always going to be – musicians will have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.
That’s Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I’d never worked with before.
Even though I have often recorded alone, I still feel the best music is made by musicians playing off each other.
I’d been studying philosophy at the University of Chicago. I hadn’t been doing well, because I was sitting in with jazz musicians at night – it’s hard to read Heidegger, but it’s especially hard if you’re half asleep.
Well, my musicians are my friends.
The type of music we know as classical music began with rich people hiring musicians or owning them in a way. Without funding, it’s very hard to have this experience. Be it state money or private money, there has to be someone dedicated to raising the money.
There’s a fairly extensive network of musicians on tour who are all trying to stay sober, and we generally reach out to each other and offer support when and where we can.
I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we’re totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.
Lady Gaga is one of the most amazingly talented musicians to bring her gifts to humanity in a long time.
Well I’m a third-generation musician. My Grandfather’s a musician and my father and mother were both musicians and so I’m a musician. It was just natural that I should be a musician ’cause I was born into the family.
I think maybe the only time I think of being a woman… is being on the road and making sure my musicians are fed and they sleep. ‘Are you OK? Do you need some water? Are you hungry? Can I get you a cookie?’ I’m not sure all the men bandleaders do that.
I hadn’t seen that many movies that really go deep enough into the fears of playing music or the language that musicians can use to treat each other or, like, the way that you can see it dehumanize and the way that it can feel like boot camp.
The consistency – either the theme from record to record, or the band, the different musicians – it really varies. So if I get criticism, I don’t worry about that, because I’m still being creative.
I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.
If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn’t be able to do it. And I want to change that.
Generally my focus has been on people who make things, whether it’s writers or directors or painters or musicians.
Yes, I would loved to have just sustained myself through my art, but less than one in a billion musicians gets that life. So rather than being like, ‘I’m an exception!’, like a moron, I thought I’d get a real job.
This is how many people become artists, musicians, writers, computer programmers, record-holding athletes, scientists… by spending time alone practicing what they love.
I just love to play and I get a chance to play with other musicians and I jump on it.
Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you’re listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music.
Musicians own music because music owns them.
I don’t think I set out to have a career in female groups, but it’s just kind of happened, and by nature of having worked with my sister – growing up with a sister who also plays, and being in communication with other female musicians.
I think ‘The Sunset Tree’ is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.
There’s all these musicians in the world, and anybody that takes enough time to create a record or even think about the fantasy of rock & roll, it’s a vulnerable place to be in, it’s a huge thing to do.
I’m always going to get more of a charge playing Chicago than I will Duluth or some place like that. Just because of the history and the people there are way more knowledgeable than a lot of other cities. It’s an amazing music scene with some great bands and great musicians.
People are afraid to ask musicians to be involved in projects because they anticipate being turned down. Young artists hesitate before contacting me. People in my position don’t get approached often enough.
I started the label Tzadik to support an entire community of musicians, not just Jewish musicians. But the radical Jewish culture movement was begun in a lot of ways because I wanted to take the idea that Jewish music equals ‘klezmer’ and expand it to, ‘Well, Jewish music could be a lot more than that.’
Very few of us have our special listening room where we close off the rest of the world and only hear the music. As musicians or as listeners, we’re generally interacting with music wherever we are, whether we’re on a train or on the street.
Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians: they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five.
I think musicians should stay off television generally.
I was very young, and I kind of decided I wanted to do comedy. My parents were musicians, so we traveled on a tour bus. You’re in a different town every night; as a kid, you’re trying to make friends fast. You try to be funny.
Some musicians play blues, others classical jazz or bluegrass. I like to play political roles because I can merge my political interests with my creative interests.
Musicians like James Blake were a big influence on me. How he uses his vocals is amazing. And then Yeasayer and Animal Collective, who aren’t pop bands exactly, but they do something that is so catchy and undeniable and so much fun.
I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.
A lot of musicians put diamonds on things to show they had money. I on the other had felt that Daytona showed I had style and I didn’t need to be flashy.
Why do musicians give so much time to charitable causes? The most humanitarian cause that we can give our time to is the creation and performance of music itself.
