The Bandstand Is A Sacred Place.

In Jazz, Improvisation Isn't A Matter Of Just Making Any Ol' Thing Up. Jazz, Like Any Language, Has Its Own Grammer And Vocabulary. There's No Right Or Wrong, Just Some Choices That Are Better Than Others.

My Older Brother And Myself Always Played Together In Bands, But We Never Knew We Would Be Professional Musicians.

The Main Three Components Are The Blues, Improvisation - Which Is Some Kind Of Element That People Are Trying To Make It Up - And Swing, Which Means Even Though They're Making Up Music, They're Trying To Make It Up Together. It Feels Great, Like You're Having A Great Conversation With Somebody.

I Travel Up And Down The Country And I've Been All Around The Middle Of America For Many Years. Middle America Is Not One Big Mass Of People With A Proverbial Beer In Its Hand, Keeping The Country Down. That Is Not My Experience Of It And I Don't Labor Under That Misconception. And We Have A Long Tradition Of Coming Together Through Music In Our Country.

He [benny Carter] Is All That Every Jazz Musician The World Over Wants To Be. He's Performed 20,000 Nights. How Many Shoes Have Been Shined? How Much Mascara Put On? Rouge? How Many Of Those Impossible Bowties Have Been Tied? How Many Love Songs Have Been Sung? How Many Dances Have Been Danced? How Many Have Passed To The Sound Of His Music? It's Been Said That A Man Should Not Be Forced To Live Up To His Art. Benny Carter Is One Of The Rare Instances When We Wonder Whether The Great Art That A Man Has Created Can Live Up To Him.