Pat Metheny Jazz Quotations

There's more bad music in jazz than any other form. Maybe that's because the audience doesn't really know what's happening.

Music is what you notice when it's no longer in your presence...

...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing.

Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

It is Jazz's very nature to change, to develop & adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

Most guys at Berklee are going to wind up truck drivers...

Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

If you plan on continuing a tradition, it might be a good idea to find out just what tradition it is that you intend to continue.

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.

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.