Creativity Quote by Jan Hammer

There is a quiet sting in that "any more": not a dramatic retirement announcement, but the weary admission of a musician whose relationship to the stage has thinned out over time. Jan Hammer built a reputation on immediacy - synthesizers that felt physical, improvisation that breathed, the sense that the next bar could swerve. Live playing is where that kind of identity gets confirmed in public. Saying he's "so far removed" frames the distance as almost geographic: the stage isn’t just something he isn't doing; it’s a place he no longer inhabits.

The intent reads as clarification, maybe even self-protection. Fans and interviewers love to ask legacy artists to reenact their peak-era selves. Hammer’s line refuses that demand without picking a fight. It also hints at a shift in labor. Studio work, scoring, composing, producing - those can be controlled, refined, revised. Live performance is exposure: the travel, the bodily stamina, the risk of a bad night, the social machinery around a tour. "Removed" captures all of it, the practical hassles and the psychological recalibration.

The subtext is a comment on how musicians age inside an industry that fetishizes presence. For an artist associated with virtuosic, high-voltage work, stepping away from live playing can feel like stepping away from the proof. The phrase lands because it’s modest, almost offhand, while describing a major identity change: not quitting music, just letting the spotlighted version of it fall out of reach.