You will always find a few people in any area that would like things done completely their way.

At Verve, my bookkeeper would invariably say, 'Well, why do you want to put out Roy Eldridge?' Or 'Why do you want to put out Ben Webster? They don't sell.' And I'd say, 'Well, whether they sell or not, they're important, they should be recorded and they're what Verve stands for, so we don't have to discuss that any further.

As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy.

I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.

The record companies are interested in the kind of sales they can get from the rock groups.

Ellington is a writer and arranger, as well as a musician and leader. He does movie sound tracks.