We're not at all sure, now, that "dreams do come true" - at least those dreams we all grew up with - "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl" and "they live happily ever after". And yet we must keep on hoping that our particular dream will come true. We all want to be "happy" but we don't know just how to go about reaching this elusive state.

As a result, most of our composers and performers are made up of virtuosos, specialists and rebels. The virtuoso dazzles us with his technical fireworks and the complexity of his improvisations. And, not seldom, he becomes the specialist.

The specialist quickly finds a set of cliches and settles down to turning them out ad nauseum.

The rebel simply does what the word implies - he rebels. And he usually ends up by talking to himself.
- Gerald Heard on the sleevenotes of my "Chet Baker sings" CD, which I chanced upon while ripping the CD for my iPod