Jazz is America's own. It is played and listened to by all peoples - in harmony together. Pigmentation differences have no place... as in genuine democracy, only performance counts.

I'm talking as a professional impresario. I'm not judging anybody at all.

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

Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn't take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren't interested in it.

I find myself more at peace when I live in Europe.

If you look at my audiences, even in Europe, they're hardly teenagers.

Amsterdam must have more than a million people. But the only area where jazz is really profitable and successful in an economic sense is in Japan. That's because they haven't been exposed enough.