Top 100 Herbie Quotes
#1. If Miles Davis hadn't died it would have been interesting to do an album with him, but there wasn't much else that would have got me into the studio ... although Herbie Hancock has just been in touch about doing something and that would be an interesting combination.
Phil Collins
#2. I didn't even recall being on the DB sessions until Herbie Flowers reminded me a couple of years ago.
Jim Sullivan
#3. To my wife, I'm not Herbie Hancock the musician. I'm her husband. When I'm talking to a neighbor, I'm a neighbor. When I vote, I'm a citizen.
Herbie Hancock
#4. I think people have learned that Herbie Hancock can be defined as someone that you won't be able to figure out what he's going to do next. The sky is the limit as far as I'm concerned.
Herbie Hancock
#5. I love nineties stuff like Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. It'd be my dream to have a Radiohead-themed episode of 'Glee.' I also love jazz greats like Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock.
Mark Salling
#6. I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.
Donald Byrd
#7. It had a very good arrangement by Herbie Hancock, but it used existing pieces.
Ennio Morricone
#8. I have lifelong friends. My oldest friend, Herbie, has been a friend since I was 9. I've had bonds for over 50 years with people.
Larry King
#9. World peace is no longer some pie-in-the-sky thing, because no single person or country is going to solve it on their own.
Herbie Hancock
#10. I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.
Herbie Hancock
#11. Sometimes you have to create a vision, a path for a vision. It may not be apparent, and you may have to forge it yourself. And that will be the way to move your life forward.
Herbie Hancock
#13. For me Brazilian music is the perfect mix of melody and rhythm. It just bubbles rhythmically. If I had to pick just one music style to play if would be Brazilian.
Herbie Mann
#15. I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.
Herbie Hancock
#16. One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
Herbie Hancock
#17. You can change your character and, at the same time, change your fortune.
Herbie Hancock
#19. It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
Herbie Hancock
#20. I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.
Herbie Hancock
#21. I recently formed a foundation to raise awareness for prostate cancer. I feel it's very necessary that men be more aware about prostate cancer and their health in general.
Herbie Mann
#22. Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around.
Herbie Hancock
#23. If you're not judging what happens, then you're trusting what others are doing, what you're playing, and trusting what you're playing.And it can lead you to other ideas, to something maybe you hadn't expressed before.
Herbie Hancock
#24. I learned the importance of being nonjudgmental, taking what happens and trying to make it work.That's something you should apply to life.
Herbie Hancock
#25. I just express myself in any way I feel is appropriate at the moment.
Herbie Hancock
#27. When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.
Herbie Hancock
#28. Speaking of lunacy,' remarked Pyrgus later, 'are you in love with my sister?'
Oh, yes!' Henry said at once.
Herbie Brennan
#29. It's not easy to play in a framework that requires simplicity and to tastefully find ways to interject the kind of freedom that we have in playing jazz.
Herbie Hancock
#30. Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.
Herbie Hancock
#31. But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.
Herbie Hancock
#32. When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best.
Herbie Hancock
#33. One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
Herbie Hancock
#34. Why do you have to retire at 65? Why can't you start at 70? You know, like wine. Why can't music be that way? My new band, we're playing stuff that's never been done before.
Herbie Mann
#35. One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.
Herbie Hancock
#36. People are afraid to spend money now because they dont know how long theyre going to be working.
Herbie Hancock
#37. In World War II, jazz absolutely was the music of freedom, and then in the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, same thing. It was all underground, but they needed the food of freedom that jazz offered.
Herbie Hancock
#38. He wondered if he might be in love, but realized it was far more likely he was dying.
Herbie Brennan
#39. We need to put into practice the idea of embracing other cultures. We need to be shaping the kind of world we want to live in instead of waiting for someone else or some other entities to do it for us.
Herbie Hancock
#40. Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.
Herbie Hancock
#41. Wisdom corresponds to the future; it is philosophy.
Herbie Hancock
#42. I spent five years, at least, working with Miles. Together, we recorded ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer
and I can tell you; each of these albums instantly became jazz classics. Hey, we had Wayne Shorter playing tenor sax, Ron [Carter] on bass, Tony Williams played drums. That was great band we had.
Herbie Hancock
#43. Anybody could have seen you. I was just unlucky.' He realised what he'd said and added hurriedly, 'I mean not unlucky to have seen you that way. I mean you're very pretty, beautiful and all that, no spots or anything ... ' - Henry
Herbie Brennan
#44. Blue clung to Pyrgus and her tears turned to a ghastly, gurgling giggle. 'I'm Queen of Hael now, Mr. Fogarty,' she said; and she fainted.
Herbie Brennan
#45. Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today.
Herbie Hancock
#46. In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development of the music.
Herbie Hancock
#47. If your doctor has warned you to avoid excitement, do not turn to exploring your past lives as a soothing and sedentary occupation ...
Herbie Brennan
#48. I'm very conscious of the idea of trying to each time present something that I haven't presented before. It's a challenge to me to find something new, to find something innovative, but it's also very exciting.
Herbie Hancock
#49. To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.
Herbie Mann
#50. One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.
Herbie Hancock
#51. I wonder where she came from,
I wonder where she's gotta go.
Who's to say she's single
and who's to say she's on her own ...
Girls like that don't sleep alone
Herbie Hancock
#52. The Internet opens up a whole new range of possibilities in a wide range of areas.
Herbie Hancock
#53. The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.
Herbie Hancock
#54. One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open.
Herbie Hancock
#55. The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there.
Herbie Hancock
#56. Music is not the only reason that I practice Buddhism anymore because it has affected my whole life.
Herbie Hancock
#57. Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me.
Herbie Hancock
#60. When you get cancer, it's like really time to look at what your life was and is, and I decided that everything I've done so far is not as important as what I'm going to do now.
Herbie Mann
#61. The arts have always served relationships between people of different cultures so well. In a way, the arts function as a very serious kind of ambassador.
Herbie Hancock
#62. Like no matter what happens, this would be the ultimate, they can make something positive happen.
Herbie Hancock
#63. What I try to do is produce an atmosphere where musicians want to invest in what they do and give to the recording. I hire those musicians who I know will play something creative and interesting.
Herbie Mann
#64. I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize.
Herbie Hancock
#65. You make different colors by combining those colors that already exist.
Herbie Hancock
#66. I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.
Herbie Hancock
#67. Life is not about finding your limitations; it's about finding your infinity.
Herbie Hancock
#68. I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.
Herbie Hancock
#69. Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music
Herbie Hancock
#70. When you struggle to reach for something you don't know, that's where most of the interesting stuff is.
Herbie Hancock
#71. Jazz has been the voice of freedom for so many countries over the past half century,
Herbie Hancock
#72. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
Herbie Hancock
#73. When the suggestion was made that I might consider doing music of Joni Mitchell, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Joni, I admire not only for her music but for her person, because she's a person that really stands out for what she believes in.
Herbie Hancock
#74. Think about it: Look at the strides of awareness and treatment and tests that women have had with breast cancer, that the gay community has had with AIDS, because they're active and they talk about it.
Herbie Mann
#76. Inspiration is constantly in the air. It's up to us to develop the sensitivity to pick up on it.
Herbie Hancock
#77. Jazz to me is the spirit of freedom. I mean real freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. Freedom to pour out your guts.
Herbie Hancock
#78. When a human being is oppressed, the natural tendency is to feel anger. Jazz is a response to oppression that is not bullets and blood. Jazz is the expression of harmony ... and at the same time of hope and freedom.
Herbie Hancock
#79. Just my luck,' sighed the endolg. 'Twenty million people in the Realm and I get locked up with a wuss.
Herbie Brennan
#80. There's so much spontaneity involved, what do you practice? How do you practice teamwork? How do you practice sharing? How do you practice daring? How do you practice being nonjudgmental?
Herbie Hancock
#81. You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.
Herbie Hancock
#82. My ego is controlled enough that I don't have to be the focus.
Herbie Mann
#83. People always want to protect what's really going on inside. They want to kind of make visible something that looks more pleasant than what may be happening inside of themselves.
Herbie Hancock
#84. As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in. So, I'm concerned about peace. I'm concerned about - about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment.
Herbie Hancock
#85. When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.
Herbie Hancock
#86. I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time.
Herbie Hancock
#87. The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.
Herbie Hancock
#88. The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.
Herbie Hancock
#89. I always say, if you keep your head in the sand, you don't know where the kick's coming from.
Herbie Mann
#90. It's part of my nature. I get excited when trying out new stuff, whether it be an idea or equipment. It stimulates my juices.
Herbie Hancock
#91. My hope is that the music will serve as a metaphor for the actions taken by the inhabitants of this wonderful planet as a call for world harmony on all levels.
Herbie Hancock
#92. I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.
Herbie Hancock
#93. My father's father came from Russia; my mother came from Romania.
Herbie Mann
#94. Being selfish to me means that you have to look out for yourself and you don't have to sacrifice.
Herbie Mann
#95. My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.
Herbie Hancock
#96. I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.
Herbie Hancock
#97. Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.
Herbie Hancock
#98. I'm one of the people who was a pioneer in encouraging musicians, early in the game, to get interested in technology, and now all the musicians are getting into it.
Herbie Hancock
#99. But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.
Herbie Hancock
#100. It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.
Herbie Hancock
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