We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.

Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics.

I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.

Do something that will last and be beautiful. It doesn't have to be a bridge-or a symphony or book or a business. It could be the look in the eye of a child you raise or a simple garden you tend. Do something that will last and be beautiful.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.