Ken Burns

Jazz is a spectacularly accurate model of democracy and a look into our redemptive future possibilities.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.

Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.

Albert King wasn’t my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues!

Some people try to get very philosophical and cerebral about what they’re trying to say with jazz. You don’t need any prologues, you just play. If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you.

Don’t give up trying to do what you really want. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

I am not interested in compromising my music to make it palatable to an assumed sub-standard mass.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres.

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

You want the audience to feel what you’re doing.

You gotta mean it and you gotta treat it gentle.

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

It’s not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

Jazz is a feeling more than anything else.

[Stratocaster vs Les Paul] It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things that you can distract and abuse. You can’t do that with a Les Paul. It’s too delicate. It’s got a very delicate tone; most people don’t ever realize that because they are plugged into monstrous amplifiers which completely, instantaneously covers up the unique sound quality it has. All those years of development go straight out the window when you overload the amp.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don’t learn something every day, you know what I think? It’s a day lost. Now, I don’t practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I’m doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.