One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop. – Keith Jarrett
When you’re on stage you have a very strange knowledge of what the audience is. It isn’t exactly a sound – it’s a hum, like the streets. – Keith Jarrett
I realized that improvisers should probably always have time off. But musicians are always gigging and never have a chance to stop for a minute – unless something drastic occurs. – Keith Jarrett
I can’t even tolerate my own playing on electric keyboards. It’s not about the musical ideas – the sound itself is toxic. It’s like eating plastic broccoli. – Keith Jarrett
If a person plays dissonance long enough, it will sound like consonance. It’s a language that was alien and then it’s less and less alien as it continues to live. – Keith Jarrett
Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there’s no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window. – Keith Jarrett
You know, when people look at a tree, they look at the leaves; they don’t look at the spaces between the leaves. They’re focused on the tree. I think there’s an awareness of spaces or it wouldn’t look like a tree to them. – Keith Jarrett
I don’t like recording studios – except my own, which is just a little room above the garage. – Keith Jarrett
When you’re up against an electric band like that, it’s like you’re on two separate planets. – Keith Jarrett
If I’m not a jazz player all the time, I’ve at least been cued in to what I do by jazz. – Keith Jarrett
If you already have a piece of music ingrained in your body, why would you not play it? – Keith Jarrett
We accept so many things that come through the media; we get used to them, however vigilant we are. But for any creative art, you have to remain 110% conscious, and in a world that’s losing consciousness, that’s getting harder. – Keith Jarrett
Your own music comes out of your head and emotions, but it’s not etched in your system. – Keith Jarrett
I’m not talking ideas, or even presentation. It’s like in politics: You have to sell something to become an electric player – like your skin or your heart. – Keith Jarrett
