Quotes About Artistry

I've always said that, growing up in postwar Japan, I never felt any connection to my work through those experiences. The work I do really comes from inside myself. For me, being born in Japan was an accident.

If you're a director and you pay homage to Japan, you're definitely going to remember what you've learned from watching the Japanese masters' films.

I'm fascinated by Japanese cuisine.

The Japanese actually approach the music on a high level. It's always been on a high level.

We would love to perform in Japan in Japanese, in America in English.

I love Jason Robert Brown.

I may not be as lyrically adept as Jay-Z and Morrissey, but at least I can sing what I feel.

I learned so much from listening to Jay-Z, M.O.P. and Gang Starr.

It's like jazz: You learn the rules to break them - as long as you can break them in a meaningful way.

Everything we did, we did live - and then Bobby took it home and chopped it up and edited it. Which is pretty much what they did with every jazz record you've ever heard.

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.

Grover Washington was my main influence, and when I went to college, I started listening to more of the jazz masters like Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane.

I'm a great jazz fan.

I wanted to play some more grown-up music - jazz.

The only element of jazz that I keep is improvisation.

I've always loved jazz.

Rock and roll mainly but I can play passable jazz also.

I do after-school ballet and also hip-hop and jazz.

I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.

I think jazz has given me freedom with my voice.

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

I discovered flamenco when I was 14, before I even got involved with jazz music. I was so crazy about flamenco music. I wanted to be a flamenco guitar player.

I wanted to be a jazz musician.

We get jealous not because we're evil, but because we have little artists pent up inside us.