If youre going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If youre going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation thats based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, youre down to about 10 people or so.

There is not a sentence in the world that could respectfully do justice to the life and music of Jerry Garcia.

One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.

Pop doesn't really look back. It can't. What makes pop work is simplicity.

If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?

One of the things that I loved about listening to Miles Davis is that Miles always had an instinct for which musicians were great for what situations. He could always pick a band, and that was the thing that separated him from everybody else.

You don't know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.