“I don’t think I’ve done my best yet,” said Jones. “That’s a goal that I’m working toward, and I haven’t gotten there yet. It’s like the story, and it’s true, about the guy who was interviewing George Shearing, and asked George if he’d been blind all his life. And George answered, ‘Not yet.’ So, no, I haven’t done my best yet.
“You know,” he added, his dark eyes strong and focused, beaming 90 years of accumulated wisdom, “what I enjoy the most is when I don’t make too many mistakes. Because every time you sit down at the piano you’re challenging yourself. But it’s not a competition. What you’re doing is you’re trying to make each performance be better than the last one. That’s what you work for. That’s what you hope for, to make each performance better than the last one.
“Not perfection,” Jones concluded, with a wry smile. “Because I don’t believe there is such a thing as perfect. Perfection is something you strive for that you never actually reach. It’s a place where you and the instrument become one—your mind, your fingers, your body. I’m still trying to reach that level.”
exquisite taste, sensitivity, the deepest love of music and melody, in along music career spanning into last year...at age 91, hank jones now moves to another realm.throughout my life, hank has been a lighthouse of melody, technical mastery, and the very best in jazz.
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