On record dates like that I never felt too nervous because everything was really overdubbed. When we did that album, we were in the studio for probably a week, so you had a lot of opportunity to fix things. John Abercrombie Read Quote
Take ’39 Steps’. When I finished writing it, I counted the number of measures in the composition. I always do this because I am interested in the length of a song. So I counted this one a couple of times because 39 is an unusual number of measures for a song. John Abercrombie Read Quote
I don’t think anybody really super-consciously tries to develop a style to play. John Abercrombie Read Quote
I think once I started writing my own music and having my own bands, that’s when I got more of a focus on what I wanted to do, personally. John Abercrombie Read Quote
The way I evolved was playing straight-ahead jazz into playing more fusion-type stuff just because I was young enough to get into it. As I get older, I find myself coming back to where I kind of started. John Abercrombie Read Quote
When we improvise freely – that is, without a structure – it tends to sound more like 20th century classical music, more like a classical ensemble improvising, as opposed to a free-jazz group, where you’re more used to hearing saxophones honking. John Abercrombie Read Quote
You’re just sort of searching for this ‘thing’ and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t. All music is imperfect, but in jazz since you’re improvising, at least the way I play, I’m trying to follow my train of thought in a solo. John Abercrombie Read Quote
I don’t remember what was going through my mind, but what was going through my body was fear and terror. I had been on the road with Johnny and working gigs and playing a lot of the organ clubs. John Abercrombie Read Quote
I grew up listening to Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, guys with blues backgrounds. John Abercrombie Read Quote
Every time I listen back to solos of mine I’ll hear something I like and then another phrase that I can’t stand. You have to live with what you play. And the recording medium puts that on us. When I play live gigs I don’t think so much like that. John Abercrombie Read Quote
