Creativity Quote by Norman Granz

Granz is talking about control, but he’s really talking about power: the kind that hides behind “preferences” and “standards” and shows up wherever music has to pass through a gate. The line has the weary calm of someone who’s negotiated too many rooms where a “few people” insist their taste is the law of nature. It’s not a tantrum; it’s a field report. In any scene - a club, a label, a festival, a radio station - there’s always a small class of tastemakers who confuse stewardship with ownership.

Coming from Norman Granz, that subtext lands harder. This is the producer who built Jazz at the Philharmonic, fought segregation clauses, and treated musicians like the main event rather than hired ambiance. He knew that creative work isn’t only made onstage; it’s made in contracts, on tour routes, in who gets paid, who gets billed, and who’s allowed in the room. “Completely their way” points to a totalizing impulse: not just wanting input, but wanting the whole ecosystem to reflect one person’s comfort.

The line’s quiet bite is its universality without sentimentality. Granz doesn’t demonize “people”; he describes a recurring pattern, almost like a law of the entertainment industry. The intent is practical and protective: expect the control freaks, plan for them, and don’t let a minority of loud certainty rewrite the terms of the art.