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.

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

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.

One of the things I really like about Ford's films is how there is always a focus on the way characters live, and not just the male heroes.

I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.

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.

The flame is not out, but it is flickering.