To put it as simply as possible, I’ve sought to write a narrative biography of Louis Armstrong that is comparable in seriousness, scope, and literary quality to a “definitive” high-culture biography of a great novelist–or a great classical composer. Very few popular-music biographies have aspired to that kind of standard, but it seems obvious to me that Satchmo was a figure of comparable artistic and cultural significance, and deserves to be written about in the same way. — here

Little boys used to be given toy guns to play with, then grew up and never shot anyone. Now they’re forbidden from even drawing a gun on a piece of paper at school, and shoot each other by the hundreds in the streets. — there

Not everyone belongs to a trendy little clique that spends all their time “dropping in” and drinking cocktails. — here

Hardly anyone actually writes things on paper with a pencil anymore. Everyone else lives in the virtual world where Sibelius doesn’t mean Swan of Tuonela but rather the most updated notation software. — there (via)