96 Quotes by Ken Burns

By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.

I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.

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

The way I work, the interview never becomes larger than the person being interviewed.

We're having a hard time understanding where jazz is going. What happened to jazz?

I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.

I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that it's extremely predictable, it's a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and there's a certain musical virtuosity involved in it.

The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.

I grew up certain for a while that I was going to be an anthropologist, until film turned my head.