I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would have never written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker never would have played anything but swing music. There comes a point at which you have to stand up and say, this is what I have to do.

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.

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.

I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.

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

We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe. What you have to do is play a couple of songs and then get off the stage because everything that trails it sounds stupid.

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