Pat Metheny

Smokin' at the Half Note is the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made. It is also the record that taught me how to play.

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

I can't really say enough about Chris Potter. He is one of the greatest musicians I have ever known, and every second I have been on the band stand with him has been an absolute pleasure.

There are musicians who go through their lives sort of shedding their skins. For me, I've always felt backward-compatible to Version 1.0.

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.

More and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is really more about listening than it is about playing.