Creativity Quote by Robert Quine

There is a whole autobiography tucked into Quine's offhand list: he "started off" not with the canonized, altar-polished version of jazz, but with the stuff that grooves first and preaches later. Ramsey Lewis, Milt Jackson, Kenny Burrell are not obscure deep cuts; they're doorway artists. Soul-jazz, vibraphone blues, guitar lines that swing without demanding a dissertation. Quine is quietly telling you his ears were trained by feel, not pedigree.

The word "funky" does a lot of cultural work here. In jazz talk, it's both a compliment and a border dispute: a stamp of authenticity for some, a dog whistle for "too accessible" for others. Quine leans into it as a value statement. He's aligning himself with music that carries sweat and swagger, music that makes a room move. That preference maps neatly onto his later reputation as a guitarist who could be abrasive, precise, and deeply rhythmic all at once, bringing a jazz brain into punk and new wave without sanding down the edges.

There's also an argument about lineage hiding in plain sight. By naming players who bridged hard bop, blues, and pop sensibility, Quine rejects the myth that seriousness begins at the avant-garde. His origin story isn't about purity; it's about pleasure as a legitimate starting point. The subtext: if you want to understand my playing, follow the pulse first, then the theory.