One of the big secrets that a lot of people never quite get is that the greater the work of art, the greater the humility of the artist.Â
This is the simplest form I can think of to describe it: When creating, you have to give yourself over to the moment. In order to give yourself over to the moment you have to lose the ego. Once the ego’s gone, what’s left is humility.Â
Once a jazz musician gives themselves over entirely to the music (loses the ego) than he or she will be coming from what Far Side creator Gary Larson called an “intensely personal, and therefore original perspective.”
And this is the only way real art is created. Sometimes we look at our heros, or hear musicians talking “so and so has a huge ego” – no they don’t - not if they’re playing the real shit. Its always exactly the opposite. This has nothing to do with the rest of their life, however. Artists often tend to be self-indulgent, narcissistic as people in general, but once the horn comes out, you can hear when someone has moved out of their own way.