Quotes About Improvisation

I don't really listen to a lot of stuff that sounds real similar to me because I work on that kind of music all day. I end up listening to more jazz, stuff that I can't really play.

I've been a big blagger all my life.

If we tried to analyse our comedy, we might stop being any good at it.

What a director should be doing is making it appear as though there was no script.

I want to be in a space where, if I appear on the stage or the screen, the audience should not know what I'm going to do.

All the parts I've enjoyed playing the most I didn't know about until they appeared, or it was something I read and fell in love with.

I love doing my podcast, but it's not my art form. I don't have to work on it. It's off the cuff.

I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.

If we found an ashtray in the studio, we'd try to play it and find a part for it in a song.

Jan Garbarek about Keith Jarrett: "What people don't consider is all his wonderful ways of accompanying his own melodies. That is only that version. But I've played with him so many nights and they were all different!... The way he voiced things and the inner lines he played behind the melody, and his own compositions were often radically different, but no less beautiful… It's hard to believe!

Talking of his relationship with Jarrett, DeJohnette says, "I love him because, as a pianist and drummer myself, I can identify with him … the concept of what to ignore, what to leave in, what to leave out… we intuitively understand that … that's why when we play together… we never know what's going to happen, but we always get something happening that turns us on.

Then a beat-up car lurched into sight towing an even more beat-up car. As the cars came near, I saw that they were connected back to front by a loop made of two seat belts buckled to each other. That was the only time I ever saw a Russian use a seat belt for any purpose at all.

I wanna shoot you so bad my dick is hard!" Long after the movie came out, I saw cats wearing that on T-shirts, like it's an actual slogan. The line wasn't in the script; it was just something I ad-libbed in the moment. It sounded cool and crazy and believable for

player." I nodded, got up, took the mic, kicked some rhymes that were floating around in my head—real impromptu—and won first prize.

When I'm on stage, it's a little world I've created where I'm sort of the thing, so I have total control over everything that happens. When we're improvising, I'm with someone I totally trust. I know things are going to work out. I don't have those guarantees in life. There are no consequences on stage.

You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.

I don't know now if I'm funny. I just keep talking and hope that I hit something that's funny.

I made little Super 8 extravaganzas when I was a kid, the first being my own version of 'Romeo and Juliet,' and where I played all the parts except for Juliet.

I love the idea of not being able to afford something and just making your own version or buying a cheap knock-off instead.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

Even when I was studying piano, I always preferred to play around with my own improvisations rather than do my studies. So I've always been interested in writing music from a very early age.

All of the material for 'The Fine Line' was created via improvisation with my partner, but not in front of an audience. We'd continue to refine it in front of an audience based on their responses until it was set and scripted.

Freedom is the thing that has attracted me most to jazz. Within improvisation, you're really able to express something that maybe I'm not so adept at expressing via language. So I develop a language through the instrument to tell stories. So it's kind of this freedom of thought and freedom of expression that kind happens.

And more than anything, I like the improvisation of jazz. That's the same thing with DJ-ing. There's so much improvisation you can do with cuttin' and scratchin' that's reminiscent of jazz music, because it's all about how you feel. You're capturing a vibe and just going with it.