Creativity Quote by Norman Granz

There is a quiet radicalism in the word "allowed" here, and Granz knows it. As a producer and impresario, he held the keys: stage time, studio time, union rules, budgets, audience patience. By framing himself as someone who "allowed" artists to keep going, he admits the power imbalance that usually stays politely off-mic. Then he flips it, tying that power to an ethic: let the music run until the musicians decide it has said what it needs to say.

The phrase "as long as they felt" is the tell. Granz is defending an artist-centered standard of value in an industry built to standardize. Jazz, especially in the mid-century concert and recording world he helped shape (Jazz at the Philharmonic, integrated tours, premium ticket prices), was often forced into neat units: three-minute sides, radio-friendly sets, tidy encores. He’s staking out the opposite: duration as a form of freedom, improvisation as an argument against the clock.

"Justifiably" adds a second layer. He’s not romanticizing endless noodling; he’s invoking accountability to craft. The justification isn’t to executives, critics, or even the crowd's restlessness, but to the artist's own sense of necessity. Subtext: if the performance is alive, you don’t interrupt it because the schedule says so. This is Granz’s broader politics in miniature, too: respect the musician as a worker with dignity and as a mind worth trusting, and the result is not indulgence but intensity.