Quotes About Innovation

You know, my music utilizes things from the past, because that's what the past is for. It's to learn from. It's not to limit you, you shouldn't be limited by it.

The older ideas are rendering more and more bland music.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

Rock music is becoming stale. Let's put the fun back.

Literature is painting, architecture, and music.

I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment.

David Bowie told me my music sounds like tomorrow

If one takes all the styles in jazz harmonically from the earliest beginnings to the latest experiments, he still has a rather limited scope when compared to the rest of music in the world.

The things Elvis has done during his career and the things he has contributed and created are really something very important to the music business.

[Bebop is] Chinese music.

I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.

All the big artists I talk to say that they are trapped in a formula and they are looking for the music of tomorrow.

I'm a commercial artist, both in music and art.

We have always been thinking about different ways to perform electronic music, i.e. music made with machines.

I am the maker of music, the dreamer of dreams!

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

Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

Everything in my life has been about sound and making music, so Beats represents just that - the improvement of sound and the dedication to everything I've been doing from the day I started.

I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music.

Trane was the father. Pharoah was the son. I was the holy ghost.

Rap is my most used medium but I don't think I approach music like a rapper would.

I think the music of the Fifties is really good. I suspect it's much better musically than much of what's available now. Not in terms of production, but in terms of content.

I guess now music is so saturated and so microwaved. It's, like, 15 minutes in the microwave and boom, you've got something. Nobody's putting passion or any thought behind it anymore.

I don't dig that two-beat jive the New Orleans cats play. My boys and I have to have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating.