"Jazz is the folk music of the machine age." ~Paul Whiteman

"Jazz is an intensified feeling of nonchalance." ~Françoise Sagan

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." ~Louis Armstrong (1901-71), American trumpeter and jazz musician

"One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next. Do you?" ~Bix Beiderbecke (1903-31), American jazz cornetist, improviser, and composer

"I'll play it first and tell you what it is later." ~Miles Davis (1926-91), American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer

"Jazz music has got to have that thing. You have to be born with it. You can't even buy it. If you could buy it, they'd have it at the next Newport festival." ~Miles Davis (1926-91), American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer

"Opera is music drama." ~Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

"Opera is when a guy gets stabbed and instead of bleeding, he sings." ~Ed Gardner (1905-63)

"Videos destroyed the vitality of rock and roll. Before that, music said, 'Listen to me.' Now it says, 'Look at me.'" ~Billy Joel, singer, pianist, and songwriter