It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line

The Europeans who went to Africa came back with “modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.

Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.

Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.

I began by tinkering around with some old tunes I knew. Then, just to try something different, I set to putting some music to the rhythm that I used in jerking ice-cream sodas at the Poodle Dog. I fooled around with the tune more and more until at last, lo and behold, I had completed my first piece of finished music.