Art & Creativity Quote by Benny Green

There’s a quiet defiance in how Benny Green shrugs off the whole “hobbies” question. In a culture that loves the tidy inventory of leisure - golf, cooking, woodworking, whatever can be turned into a charming profile sidebar - he answers like a working musician who doesn’t separate life from practice. The move is simple: he refuses the premise that a creative person needs extracurricular proof of being well-rounded. His listening is the hobby, the job, the habit, the education.

The detail that matters is “spoken word.” Not just music, not just “I listen to records,” but language: voices, cadence, argument, timing. For a musician, that’s a tell. Jazz phrasing has always been in conversation with speech - the way a solo can sound like someone thinking out loud, stalling, insisting, joking, doubling back. Green’s choice hints at craft: he’s feeding his ear with narrative rhythm, not just chord changes.

“Books on tape” also dates the quote in a revealing way. Before podcasts and endless streams, audiobooks were a slightly unglamorous technology of absorption, the kind you used while traveling, commuting, or coming down after a set. That’s the subtext: a life in motion, where attention has to be portable. The intent isn’t to sound intellectual; it’s to sound honest about how he refuels. He’s telling you he doesn’t collect pastimes. He collects listening.