Pat Metheny Music Quotations

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.

I'm triggering acoustic instruments. I'm literally beating, smacking, hitting, blowing, doing physical things. It's an incredibly exciting way to make music.

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

I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about Jazz.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a Jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

The reality of music itself, which is the fabric of life for me, is where most of my attention is.

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

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

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

Jazz is an idea that is more powerful than the details of its history.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

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.