"Guitar playing, as currently understood, has more to do with sports than it does to do with music. It's an Olympic challenge type of situation. The challenges are in the realm of speed, redundancy, choreography, and grooming... ...clouds of educated gnat-notes."

Previous Quote

Do you know what it took for Balanchine to put me, a black man, on stage with a white woman? This was 1957, before civil rights. He showed me how to take her [holding her delicately by the wrist]. He said, ‘put your hand on top.’ The skin colors were part of the choreography. He saw what was going to happen in the world and put it on stage.

— Arthur Mitchell