Ken Burns Quotes

I still find it hard to believe that the whole era of jazz is over.

There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time.

I was really trying to sell to people who hate jazz: to make a case for the art form as youthful and energetic, not the sort of rarified intellectual activity it's painted as.

The people in Japan know more about the history of jazz and the musicians than the people in the United States do.

Change is always happening. That's one of the wonderful things about jazz music.

What I love about jazz is that it's full of legends, full of myths. It's an oral history because it started in New Orleans and Kansas City, under the radar.

Jazz changes and all. But I don't know the names of what it is I'm doing.

Today jazz is still very much alive. Everywhere I go there's a new generation of musicians.

You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.

I'm thrilled when I hear the greatest jazz musicians. They continue to search in ways other musicians do not.

I think myself, Jose James, and Robert Glasper are expanding the language - really reminding people that the umbrella of jazz is large and all-encompassing.

Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny.

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

Now is a good time, 10 years ago would have been a good time, and 10 years from now it will still be a good time to see a dynamic, entertaining movie that's wall-to-wall Miles Davis where the music will hopefully spark some desire to know more about the man.

Oh yeah, that was the thing to do at that time. This was before the new wave of bebop started.

I listen to jazz mainly. Mainstream jazz.

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of jazz.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.

Jazz is like a big secret club. The mainstream media doesn't pay any attention to it; it's, like, 1 percent of the music market - no one cares. Why? Because the majority of jazz is old.

I just don't know anything about jazz, really. I've never really listened to it, but I'd definitely like to discover more about it.

I've met a lot of jazz musicians in my day, and they're all funny.

Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?

My dad is a big jazz fan, and that was the reason I first got into jazz.

The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.