History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions.

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

I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.

I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally.

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

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.

Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.