Creativity Quote by Norman Granz

There is a polite fantasy baked into show business: that money will behave like a neutral judge. Norman Granz, the jazz impresario who built Jazz at the Philharmonic and bullied the industry into desegregated stages and audiences, isn’t naively repeating that fantasy so much as testing it for hypocrisy. The phrase "go all out" sounds generous, even noble, but it’s also a tell. Sponsors and networks don’t "go all out" for justice; they go all out when they smell ratings, prestige, and low-risk profit. Granz is naming the deal everyone pretends isn’t a deal.

The subtext is sharper: “simply evaluate” is doing heavy lifting. In a segregated mid-century America, nothing about evaluation was simple. Talent was never the only metric; it was the alibi. Gatekeepers invoked “standards” and “marketability” to keep Black musicians visible but contained, brilliant but underpaid, celebrated but not empowered. Granz’s career was a running argument against that system, using commercial leverage to force venues to accept integrated seating and equal treatment for performers. He understood that “talent” becomes a convenient story when the real criteria are comfort, bias, and advertiser nerves.

Context matters because Granz operated at the junction where art meets corporate distribution. Networks and sponsors didn’t just broadcast culture; they laundered it into acceptability. His line reads like a challenge: if you’re so committed to talent, prove it when talent arrives in a body your audience has been trained to fear. The quote works because it’s optimism delivered with a blade hidden in the sleeve.