My first assignment for Down Beat was to do an interview with Milt Jac — Dan Morgenstern

"While most first-time visitors wanted to see the Statue of Liberty (arriving by ocean liner, Id already seen it) or the Empire State Building, I wanted to go to Fifty-Second Street, that legendary block of jazz clubs Id read so much about. It wasnt much to look at from the outside, though the names on the various marquees and sandwich boards made me drool. History tells us that by the spring of 1947, the street was well into its decline and fall, and to be sure, there were signs touting strippers and comedians. But having Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, and Billie Holiday all on the same block wasnt shabby. I soon discovered that it was possible to hear a lot of music from outside the clubs, if their wasnt too much traffic noise and the doorman didnt chase you away. Eventually I learned how to nurse a beer through several sets of music by drinking from the bottle, which was opaque, instead of from a glass, which the bartender could easily spot when empty, or, if I wanted to stick around all night, to tip the bartender well on the first transaction, after which hed leave me alone with my empty bottle."

"As an unintended result of the Nazi occupation [of Denmark, where Morgenstern lived at the time], jazz became more popular than ever—a phenomenon universal to countries under the Hitler jackboot. In France, Django Reinhardt enjoyed the greatest acclaim of his career, and even in Germany, there were clandestine groups of jazz fans whod meet to listen to records. Jazz was anathema to the Nazis. who considered it a mongrel affront to Aryan "culture," the product of an unholy alliance between Africans and Jews. But to those who hated the Nazis, jazz stood for freedom, for democracy, and for the spirit of America, which, especially after Pearl Harbor, seemed to embody hope for a better future."

"Then the next thing we did, which was in 1955, Art Tatum had a trio at Storyville [in Boston, Mass]. I really wanted Tatum solo. Guitar and bass – its a fine – but I wanted to hear him himself. So we propositioned him. That turned out to be something that he immediately responded to. So we made sure that we got the best piano on campus and had it tuned to a T. I wrote a piece about him. The concert was terrific. ... Tatum played wonderfully. Then when we took him back to Boston and thanked him profusely, he then said – and this was something that I think jolted me and gave me maybe in the back of my mind the thought that I might want to get involved in this kind of thing – he said, "I want to thank you, because this is the first time Ive done a solo concert all by myself." What he meant by that was that he had of course performed publicly solo piano before, but always as part of a program where there were other attractions. 1955 is a year before his death. Its astonishing."