If anybody was Mr. Jazz it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.

San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world - one of the really urbane communities in the United States - one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world

Simplicity is a most complex form

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.

Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.