I read cover to cover every jazz publication that I could and in the New York Times, every single day reading their jazz reviews even though I didn't put them in the films. I wanted to know what is going on.

The way I work, the interview never becomes larger than the person being interviewed.

Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means, "God in us."

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.

Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.