Quotes About Improvisation

I played a gig at the Montreax Jazz Festival once - and on a song called 'It's All Gone,' I had to do free-form slide solo. It's the best thing I've ever done - because I wasn't thinking about it.

I mean, in the course of an evening, people will take a solo here and there, but generally it's all about the rhythm of that music. Dealing with the rhythm with everything. That's essentially at least my concept of what that group is.

There's something about the rawness of the live thing, there's no rhythm guitars behind the solo, nothing other than what you hear the people playing at that moment. It's exciting, it's about the performance.

Just because you know umpteen billion scales, it doesn't mean you have to use them all in a solo.

I try to make my flow sound like a John Coltrane solo.

When you have 13 horns, and one is soloing, you have 12 people to play the richest, fullest chord you could ever imagine behind that solo.

Even if it is difficult playing with other people - sometimes it's great, sometimes it isn't, but that is kind of the point of it. It loses its point playing solo.

I'll play with a hundred pieces or do a solo job.

I think playing solo is a second rate activity, really. For me, playing is about playing with other people.

My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music.

When I play a solo I'm just expressing that moment. It can go horribly wrong easily enough.

Jam Cruise is actually a comfortable place for me. My jamming skills and my improvisational skills have improved immensely as I've gone more solo, because I've had this opportunity.

I'm into the whole song-as-a-piece-of-music thing: if it literally doesn't call for it, if it already has enough stuff going on, then it's okay not to play a solo.

I can't play a solo without thinking about John Jorgenson. I always think about what he would do.

Playing solo with an audience for an hour and 30 minutes without a break means I have to, as the jazz cats say, get into the shed and work on my chops.

Most blues guitar players don't concentrate on singing and melodies. And forget about the bridge - the bridge doesn't exist. They go straight for the solo.

I'm not afraid to have a really weird idea or, you know, take a really bad guitar solo.

You hear a great Art Blakey drum solo or Elvin Jones, and you can tell when they're taking a breath. You can tell when they're loading up for something big. There's just this humanity in it, and I think that's important as well.

There should always be some sort of conclusion or climax to your solos.

I can't see us getting into, like, long solos.

I've always done very 'composed' music and worked-out solos. But sometimes it's fun not knowing where you're going.

My solos are more tastefully conceived now. But I still get going in places. It's just that I build up to it now. I don't race off on a solo. I take my time.

I don't labour over my lead guitar solos; they're better just caught in the moment.

All of my solos were improvised initially - I would go in and get my bearings and see what I came up with.