Happiness Quote by Earl Hines

Risk is the engine of Earl Hines's artistry, and he frames it like a swimmer who keeps choosing the far buoy. "Deep water" isn't just technical difficulty; it's the decision to improvise past the safe shoreline of rehearsed competence. In jazz, that choice is a kind of ethics: you prove what you believe about freedom by how willing you are to get lost.

The slyest move is the split between what the audience hears and what the musician survives. "The audience never knows" signals an unglamorous truth about virtuosity: the clean surface is built on private panic, split-second problem-solving, and the discipline to make uncertainty sound inevitable. Hines is talking about the moment a phrase won't resolve, when the harmony doesn't open the door you expected. That's not failure in his telling; it's the whole point. He "gets hung up" and treats the snag as creative friction, the part of the performance where he has to invent a new route back.

Then comes the grin: "when I smile the most, when I show the most ivory". The "ivory" pun (piano keys, teeth) turns strain into showmanship. Hines is describing the performer’s mask, but not as deception; as generosity. The smile is a pressure valve and a promise: even if the player is wrestling the music, the room will get joy, swing, confidence. Historically, that fits Hines's era and persona - a bandleader and innovator who helped shift jazz piano toward horn-like phrasing. The smile is both shield and signature: a way to make danger look like style.