Leonard Bernstein: Look at the audience for a minute. In the old days in a club, in the Savoy, in the anywhere, you have a bunch of, what they used to call in the old fashioned jive talk, "gators," "cats," whatever it happens to be, sitting in the audience, keeping time, having a wonderful time, screaming out, "Play it, man. That's real hot." In those days, "hot." In these days it's "cool." [Audience laughs.] Everything's terribly exciting. Everybody's having a wonderful time. That was the whole point. It was fun. Jazz was fun. Jazz was entertainment, a version of popular art.
Now you go to these people sitting in Birdland, with their horn-rimmed glasses, nursing one single bourbon and ginger ale for four hours,[audience laughs] so that the management of Birdland's deal from this, you have to charge ninety dollars a drink [audience laughs] in order to stay open. And when a number is over, the audience politely applauds, as much as they would do at the Carnegie Chamber Hall, or in Jordan Hall, and then you have another number. It's all terribly solemn and interesting, and everybody listens to those changes on the piano. Everybody listens. "Yes, that was terribly interesting, the way you dipped from the A# in front." [audience laughs] And everybody ... When I say everybody, I would guess that about 98 percent of all these people who are talking about the dip from the A# and the running changes don't know what they're talking about but are impersonating jazz fans. This has been my experience, because the minute I begin to talk to them, it turns out they are phony.
There are, there is a small percentage of these people who really know what's going on, and I mean among even musicians don't know what's going on, very nearly, because it's very hard.