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

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.

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

Sponsors and networks will really go all out and simply evaluate people on the basis of talent.

I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something tremendously special. But I am a jazz fan.

To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.

The economic picture in the States today doesn't allow for jazz concerts in a tour fashion. People now are too used to the Festival, which gives them more names for the same price.