My function at Verve was that of a genuine producer in artists and repertoire.

I don't know who's 18 years old today that, 20 years hence, is going to be a jazz fan.

I made it easier for many artists to play in certain areas.

My function at Verve was that of a genuine producer in artists and repertoire.

I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.

The public, hearing pop music, is, without knowing it, also soaking up jazz.

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

Ella can work nightclubs that Duke might not be able to work, because of having the big band. Where they go now is strictly a matter of their own names and talents.

When I was doing jazz concerts in America, I would use the biggest names I could find.

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

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

Jazz was uplifted by what I did.

The history of all big jazz bands shows was, first they played for dancing, and then they played for singing.

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

My juices needed restoring. I needed a sabbatical from the record business.

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

I still continue to do at least four concert tours a year, and in many cases, as many as six.

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.

There are very few groups that really stay together. The leaders of groups make enough money to be able to afford to work a maximum of 35-40 weeks a year.

I'm concerned with trend. I don't know where jazz fans will come from 20 years from now.

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

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 don't think I will ever do any tours again in the United States. I rather think that that's over with.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

In 1958, I decided that I was going to live in Europe permanently. So in 1959 I moved to Lugano, Switzerland.

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

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

There are many artists that I present that I admit I like less than I do others. But I think that they warrant being presented by my own, personal standards.

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.

But I found a lot of artists at the Cedar Bar were difficult for me to talk to.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.

I got to sit down with people who I admired, and have conversations with some of the greatest thinkers and artists and performers. It's a huge privilege for me to be a journalist.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

The truth is, we haven't really figured out yet how artists are going to thrive in modern mass societies. We're all experiments.

Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.

The number of contemporary artists who appeal to me is infinitesimal.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists.

Because when the film was first mooted, the Beatles didn't like the idea at all. In fact they wouldn't have any part in it. And when Brian had committed them, it was part of a deal he did with United Artists, I think.

Artists are like everybody else.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

My proudest achievement has been the success of the shows and artists I have been involved with, because they were made in Britain.