Quote of the Day

(Creating jazz) was a way for people to break with the old.  It was a way to break from Europe, it was a way to break from Old Victorian mores, it was to break from a whole bunch of other stuff.  It was sort of clean in that respect, and America no longer had to look back to its past, no longer had to look back to Europe or anything else.  The blacks when they invented this music weren't looking back to Africa, they were looking at America and looking at the future, and looking at what they were as Americans.  Europeans who came to this country and became Americans were attracted to this music, found in this music a way to break from Europe.  Finally, the Emersonian doctrine of "Create your art here" from The American Scholar finally came into fruition with this music.

-- Gerald Early, Jazz