The Spew

"LISTEN to music. Learn to TRUST music, and trust yourself, so that you may better SERVE the music. If a musician truly listens to the music he or she is playing, it will tell you most everything you need to know. Many musicians limit their hearing or listening to what they themselves are playing, NOT the music in its entirety. At least that's my impression. Also, it's good to remember the original inspiration that brought you to music in the first place, and always try to hold onto that passion. This is pretty much what I try to teach, as well as the notion that making music is actually a lot simpler than most people think, and that it's good to remain grateful for what it is we do in life." - Peter Erskine

"The whole concept of this lick thing is kind of offensive to me, because I don't think that's what it's about. A lick to me emphasizes the fact that it's something that you've played before, which is something that i really don't want to do, even though I do it, because when you run out of ideas, and you're lost and you're stuck, my brain will only do so much. Then i go, "Oh geez, I'm not playing that shit again am I?" But really, the whole idea of music is exactly the opposite of that. You have to practice things that will allow you to have control, I suppose eventually. The idea is to practice so you have enough control over the instrument to actually be able to play what you can hear, and then that way you really are truly connected to the instrument. To play licks means that you sat down and figured out a few licks and are trying to find a place to put them all." - Allan Holdsworth

"I really think Zawinul and Miles and all the guys who were playing with him were all doing something really special that has not been equaled to this day. It was the same in the sixties with Hendrix, Cream and Jeff Beck. Rock guitar has not really moved forward that much. The first time somebody got feedback and used a Marshall stack, it became the same sound with not as good playing and not as interesting music over and over again, blanched down to the level where most people can bop their heads to it and get drunk and go to a concert." - Terry Bozzio

"After a brief aberration in the late 60’s and 70’s, rock music has reverted to type, namely in that it is the preserve of the song writer, record producer, and record company, and is an area generally hostile to the ideas of a free thinking instrumentalist. That is probably as it should be, but it means the purveyors of the marginal fringe ideas that fuelled rock in the aberrant post-Beatles era, the people who brought Indian music, classical music, psychedelia, jazz, minimalism, and the like, in short all the things that made rock interesting, have been booted out, back to where they came from, branded as the meddlers they indeed were. I went back to jazz. There, the relationship is between performer and audience, as indeed it is in small intelligent rock, rather than performer and record company, as it is in the mass market. Waiting for someone at the 'label' , who neither knows anything about nor cares for music, to give you permission to play, is of course, insufferable." - Bill Bruford

"It’s sad to say, but I feel that the United States of America is a wasteland of music. The focus here is entertainment, not music. Now, I am a supporter of the concept of pure entertainment because it is something that we all need, something to make people dance and party. But, music has ONLY become an entertainment in the U.S., something to dance to, drink to, or relax to after a hard day at the office. Real Art has become an endangered species in this country. Symphony orchestras are going broke, jazz (the only art form ever invented in this nation) has become pablum called Soft Jazz. In fact, I prefer today’s rock bands to today’s soft jazz dentist office recording artists. At least the rockers believe in what they play, because, in my opinion, some of these soft jazzers can’t believe in the simple slop that they record. I want record sales too, but Heck! Some of this music is cavity forming. I once saw a soft jazz TV show that really caught me staring. The artist was a bald-headed black guy playing soft jazz on an acoustic-electric guitar, and this guy was grinning like he won the Lottery, and dancing like he was going to go to bed with Jenna Jameson before the Lottery check arrived. He was sweating and grimacing his ass off while playing. To me, NO ONE can be working that hard or be that happy while playing a pentatonic scale." - Jeff Berlin

"Basically, smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of the success of some very innovative musicians like Ramsey Lewis, Grover Washington, Jr., and George Benson. The sound was a little more sophisticated than pop or rock music, and it was softer. It was like instrumental pop, but it had a blues element. The new music also featured vocalists, like Sade and Michael Franks. As this music became embraced by what used to be called 'Wave' stations (which later became 'smooth jazz' stations), many musicians and businessmen jumped on the commercial bandwagon. What happened is that record companies saw the sales of these records, and decided to copy the formula to death.To be quite honest, I would say that a kind of formulaic, business-driven trend also affected the early music that I was involved in. Early on, 'fusion' or 'jazz rock fusion' had four premier bands: Return to Forever, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Larry Coryell's Eleventh House. What made them great was not only the individual talent of the players. There were two other important components- exceptional composing and that dynamic of musicians playing together. I think that as those original bands broke up and splintered off into new groups, each 'splinter of a splinter' seemed to dilute the level of musical ingenuity and integrity that those first bands had." - Stanley Clarke

"It's true - we are way more known and appreciated (and understood i would say) in europe (and japan) than here in the U.S. This has gotten more and more apparent over the past 10 years or so - during the 70's and the 80's there was a lot more jazz awareness here in the states than there is now. It seems like now in america, jazz is something that people see in some boring 'pbs' kind of way, (it's true most of the jazz they present is boring to the point that *i* can't even watch it myself) or it is kenny g or that kind of music with that aesthetic - and it's true - i have done my best to stay as far away from either of those areas as possible over the past 10 years or so - probably making our thing less intersected with the culture at large here; for better or worse. it's ok though - in europe our thing is actually getting stronger and i hope that their support will allow us the funds to continue our research into the zone of music that we are interested in working in. it does seem that we will be doing fewer and fewer gigs here in the u.s - but there is a long tradition of that in the jazz world anyway. (jazz guys who only work overseas while living here)." - Pat Metheny

"We can write music, plus we know how to play it. A lot of the music, people will say, 'That sounds like it's improvised', and that'll be the written part! Crazy. We do tons of stretching out in the music, on every tune, but it's on top of a good form, you know? Like I got this tune, 'Punk Jazz', man, and at the beginning, look out, because this is some stone jazz, and we come in sounding like a symphony, but it's just Joe (Zawinul) and me playing. It's unbelievable. Then Tony (Williams) comes in, and he's smoking, and Wayne (Shorter) takes one of the all-time classic soprano saxophone solos. But all that ensemble work is written out and we're grooving, and whatever talking we're doing is within the framework, so we're still completely improvising. I was really proud of Joe because he really got his calligraphy together for this album. (laughs) Usually they just throw you a piece of paper with a couple of marks on it, y'know, and you gotta work it out! This was a lot easier to read this time!" - Jaco Pastorius

Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't we all be brothers?