"The guitar for me is a translation device.  It’s not a goal. And in some ways jazz isn’t a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination – a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works." 
– Pat Metheny

(Metheny’s take on jazz isn’t so far from how Ettore Sottsass thinks about design.  If there’s such a thing as "jazz thinking", I think it shares many elements with "design thinking".)