Charlie Haden Quotes & Sayings

If you strive to become a good human being with the qualities of generosity, humility and having reverence for life ... just maybe you'll become a great musician. — Charlie Haden

James Cotton is a real blues guy, and he played with Muddy Waters, and it surprised me that they would want me to make a record with them, that he called me to do this record. I'd never done anything like that before. But I love blues, so I was very happy. — Charlie Haden

I just see myself as a human being that's concerned about life. — Charlie Haden

We're here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference in this planet. That's what art forms are about. — Charlie Haden

I have music inside me and I'm very lucky to be able to play music and that's the way that I try to do it. — Charlie Haden

I told my students the other day in class, which is about the spirituality and creativity as much as it is about music. I said, 'If you're walking down the street and you see a baby carriage, and there's a baby in the carriage; you look down and your eyes meet the eyes of the baby. The baby looks at you: That's the kind of moment you're in when you're playing. — Charlie Haden

In the midst of creating, a person is raised to another level of consciousness that doesn't have that much to do with everyday thinking. It's as if you could imagine life before there were words. — Charlie Haden

The whole underlying theme for the new music ... is to communicate honest, human values, and in doing that to try to improve the quality of life. — Charlie Haden

Chris (Anderson) is risking his life with every chord, that's how much it means to him. He has such a reverence for beauty, he plays like an angel. — Charlie Haden

You have to see your unimportance before you can see your importance and your significance to the world. — Charlie Haden

Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words. — Charlie Haden

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives, especially people who aren't exposed to creative music. — Charlie Haden

I think life is really hard sometimes. It's not easy to wake up every day and go through what you go through. But the beautiful moments that you share with people that you love, or even experience alone, are worth all of the pain and sorrow. Those moments should be cherished, and I think that's what music is all about-to remind people of the beautiful moments that are in everybody's life — Charlie Haden

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician. — Charlie Haden

As long as there are musicians who have a passion for spontaneity, for creating something that's never been before, the art form of jazz will flourish. — Charlie Haden

Some tracks are with quartet and some tracks are with synthesizer. — Charlie Haden

I just sit down at the piano and rattle it off. — Charlie Haden

There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice. — Charlie Haden

I always told the people at Cal Arts that if they wanted me to do Jazz studies, first of all, there couldn't be a big band within 500 miles and that I could do what I wanted to do. And they said I could. — Charlie Haden

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything. — Charlie Haden

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect. — Charlie Haden

It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there. — Charlie Haden

Before music there was silence and the duet format allows you to build from the silence in a very special way. — Charlie Haden

I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow - there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance. — Charlie Haden

When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise. — Charlie Haden