“Perfection. 360 degrees of soul and science in one human being. My kind of musician.”
– Quincy Jones

“Kenny Werner is a total musician. He feeds my heart and my brain and pushes me into fresh territories.
I am grateful that our agendas can coincide that often.
P.S. He also wrote a book on how to “liberate” one’s own creativity!”
– Toots Thielemans

“… an ebullient stylist … his solos start evenhandedly and become wooly rides into the darkness.”
– The Village Voice

“a pianist who tempers fearsome technique with a questing spiritualism”
–Nate Chinen, The New York Times

“Mr. Werner and his trio took apart two pieces, a swinging original of his
own called ‘Jackson Five’ along with ‘You and the Night and the Music’,
and reconfigured them with all sorts of nearly miraculous rhythm and
tempo changes….a type of rhythm section fluidity that’s rarely heard….
Mr. Werner is a clear virtuoso, and when he solos there’s wit
everywhere, with clichés dragged out of the closet to poke fun at or
rhythmic bumps added for humor.”
– Peter Watrous, New York Times

“When one hears pianist Kenny Werner, that feeling of elation is clearly front and center.”
– Zan Stewart, The Newark Star Ledger

“Whether soloing or interpreting, Werner takes you outside, but not by any route you’ve followed before.
You never know where he’s going, but every place he takes you is a delight.”
– Keyboard Magazine

“Werner has become one of our most literate and visceral pianists.”
– JAZZTIMES

“Since about 1980 Kenny Werner has been one of jazz’s unsung heroes”
– Harvey Pekar

“Werner owns more chops and brains than most pianists do….Werner hardly raises his voice
to make subtle points, couching his logic in neat vamps, sinewy angular lines, dizzying rhythmic double entendres.”
– Down Beat

“Werner, patient as a spider, spins a web of lyric calm and dancing beauty and fills in the corners,
not budging far from his center….Werner’s set - one of the very best in a series [Live At Maybeck Hall] that has
quietly become a bellwether for pianists of our era - merely shows one gentler aspect of an extraordinary gifted artist.”
– The Boston Pheonix

“Pianist Kenny Werner . . . He’s a bold, brave player and composer,
unafraid to tackle spiritual and political matters through the medium of instrumental music,
and he presents his ideas with uncommon clarity. Werner is a consummate sideman and leader,
and he’s also a deep thinker about this music — his book Effortless Mastery is widely read
by those who want to make jazz.”
–Joe Klopus, The Kansas City Star