NOW, A JAZZ MOMENT...

MUSIC: Tenderly  (Bill Evans)
           
Orrin Keepnews:  I have, and I have had, for just about all of my more or less accidental working career, an ability to create a good, functional, working relationship with more than a few incredibly talented people.  If somebody would like to tell me how come that happened, I?d be kind of curious to know...

NEA JAZZ MASTER ORRIN KEEPNEWS IS RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE MOST OUTSTANDING PRODUCERS IN JAZZ HISTORY.  BUT HE STILL QUESTIONS HIS OWN SUCCESS...

Orrin Keepnews: Maybe it?s that there?s no possibility of my feeling competitive with the people I?m working with, I do not have the faintest idea that I could play that solo better than you can, because that?s, you know, not where I am.  But, there are things that I can do in terms of creating the right atmosphere in the studio, putting the right combinations of people together and whatnot, all these hard to describe and hard to define things that a record producer supposedly knows how to do.  And so I have been, over the years, not wildly successful or I would have retired a long time ago, but I have functioned for quite a number of years as a producer in a strange world.

MUSIC: up for punctuation, then fades under and out

THIS JAZZ MOMENT WITH PRODUCER ORRIN KEEPNEWS WAS CREATED BY THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS.  I?M CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE.