It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of course, if they had gotten the original company to have done it, it would have been very good

People sometimes forget that jazz was built not only in the minds of the great ones but on the backs of the ordinary ones — ordinary musicians.

Pass that thing, slightly, lightly and politely.

Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

What opera isn't violent? Two things happen, violence and love. And other than that, name something else. You can't

A phoenix ain't nuthin' but a burd.

Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any