If you're genuinely candid and expressive then you're never wrong, even when you are wrong.

Charlie Parker was the greatest individual musician that ever lived. Every instrument in the band tried to copy Charlie Parker, and in the history of jazz there had never been one man who influenced all the instruments.

There are reviews that are clearly wrong. Dr. Johnson's famous Life of Savage, he's clearly wrong about the value of Savage. But it's one of the great works in English literature. You can learn more about the artistic expression and what the poet does and how to write about art from that than any number of guys who are terrible writers, who have no original ideas, but who say yes, "Hamlet" is a wonderful play. It's a meaningless statement.

I never really wanted to be a daily critic who goes out every night and writes 300 word reviews, I wanted to write essays. And that gave me the luxury to be able to go out and if it was lousy, I could just say, well the hell with that, I'll go to hear something else, or, I'll go tomorrow night; I as writing for a weekly.

I'm a critic. That means you are a writer. So, yes, you have to make yourself an authority on whatever subject it's going to be. Music, movies, literature, whatever it's going to be, but what you really want to do is learn your trade by reading other writers. I think you have to read veraciously, especially people who have done what you have done to see how it's been done in the past; what works, what doesn't work.

If you're genuinely candid and expressive then you're never wrong, even when you are wrong.

Nobody knows where jazz is going, because nobody has ever known where jazz was going. I mean, you couldn't possibly predict the Swing Era from the '20's or bebop from the Swing Era or Avant-garde from Bebop, or Effusion, or on and on and on. So, we don't really know where it's going.