Tom Piazza Quotations

I lost all my income for the fall because I was supposed to be teaching at Loyola (University) and I also do regular lectures on jazz in New Orleans, ... A number of friends helped me set all this up. ... It's been very moving - the degree of their concern.

I want readers to come away from the new book with an appreciation both for how complex jazz is, and yet how clear its structures are, ... And I want them to come away knocked out by the brilliance and soul and wit and profundity of the performances on the CD, able to appreciate more of what went into them, and hungry to hear more, to explore this fantastic music.

In New Orleans, the funeral traditions are there to remind you that life goes on,

It's omnipresent, and it has seeped into the ground,

It's a core element of the city's identity. It's a part of everything in New Orleans. It's not just entertainment - it's part of the way people conceive of life.

I don't see how there could be any future for New Orleans without music.

At one point, early on, some public figures even asked whether it 'made sense' to rebuild New Orleans. Would you let your own mother die because it didn't make financial sense to spend the money to treat her, or because you were too busy to spend the time to heal her sick spirit?

The past in New Orleans cohabits with the present to an extent not even approximated in any other North American city.

Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, once told me that when a brass band plays at a small club back up in one of the neighborhoods, it’s as if the audience—dancing, singing to the refrains, laughing—is part of the band.

In New Orleans the funerals remind us that Life is bigger than any individual life, and it will roll on, and for the short time that your individual life joins the big stream of Life, cut some decent steps, for God’s sake.

Go with what is. Use what happens.

New Orleans is a city of elegance, beauty, and refinement.

A portrait of the young Charlie Parker with a degree of vivid detail never before approached. . . [Kansas City Lightning is] a deft, virtuosic panorama of early jazz. . . This is a mind-opening, and mind-filling, book.