US "bandleader, songwriter".
"He was an outstanding jazz personality who wrote over 5000 original works, e.g., "Take the 'A' Train.""
The Europeans who went to Africa came back with "modern' art. What is more African than a Picasso?"
"Roaming through the jungle of "oohs" and "ahs," searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats."
"The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse."
We aren't worried about posterity; we want it to sound good right now.
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.
