"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"
About this Quote
Haden sneaks a manifesto into what sounds like gentle pedagogy: the real lesson isn’t jazz, it’s character. Coming from a bassist who spent his life anchoring other people’s solos, the line has an almost architectural logic. He’s arguing that the most valuable training a musician can get is learning how to be porous to others: listening hard, leaving space, resisting ego, staying honest when the bandstand tempts you into performance-as-personality.
The intent is partly corrective. Jazz education can turn into a credential factory, where “jazz musician” becomes a brand identity and technique replaces sensibility. Haden flips that hierarchy. “Discovering the music inside them” isn’t a self-help slogan; it’s a demand for interiority in a culture that rewards imitation. His subtext is that authenticity is ethical before it’s aesthetic: if you can’t be a decent collaborator, your virtuosity is just volume.
Context matters. Haden came up in scenes where politics, spirituality, and experimentation weren’t extracurriculars; they were in the sound itself (his work with Ornette Coleman, the Liberation Music Orchestra). So “good human beings” isn’t piety. It’s a reminder that art happens in public, with consequences. The quiet provocation is that greatness can’t be reverse-engineered through chops alone. A great musician might emerge as a byproduct of becoming someone worth listening to.
The intent is partly corrective. Jazz education can turn into a credential factory, where “jazz musician” becomes a brand identity and technique replaces sensibility. Haden flips that hierarchy. “Discovering the music inside them” isn’t a self-help slogan; it’s a demand for interiority in a culture that rewards imitation. His subtext is that authenticity is ethical before it’s aesthetic: if you can’t be a decent collaborator, your virtuosity is just volume.
Context matters. Haden came up in scenes where politics, spirituality, and experimentation weren’t extracurriculars; they were in the sound itself (his work with Ornette Coleman, the Liberation Music Orchestra). So “good human beings” isn’t piety. It’s a reminder that art happens in public, with consequences. The quiet provocation is that greatness can’t be reverse-engineered through chops alone. A great musician might emerge as a byproduct of becoming someone worth listening to.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
|---|
More Quotes by Charlie
Add to List
