"I vividly remember first seeing Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise and being inspired by the spare craftsmanship of his cinematic style. I love the simplicity of his scenes and his dry sense of humor, but the best thing is the way he brings us in and out of edits. Each scene opens with a little bit of audio from the forthcoming scene while the shot remains black. He cuts to the action in progress, and with a primarily static frame that gives us the impression of a series of tableaux, the scene plays out before cutting—not fading—to black. The restraint of this structure is deceptively simple as it calms and amuses us, pulling us along through the story in an unfolding rhythm that parallels John Lurie’s perfect score. And of course the black-and-white landscapes of New York City are irresistible."

"I got it and I burned it and listened to it on the plane a lot. That one, for her, it goes back to trying to play more old-style jazz and she's playing incredible piano on it and the drummer's incredible. It's just a sick record. When you listen to an incredible jazz record, it's just undeniable, nobody else can touch it, no white dude - and if they can, it's too schooled. That's why I like that one - I can reference the later, freer ones, but I listen to a lot of older records. There's obviously Love Supreme, but that's obviously a transitional record from [John Coltrane's] earlier ones, Soul Train and Giant Steps. This is more advanced than that: they're definitely alluding to older jazz and taking it to another place, but they never go too apeshit, they never start squealing, but that's a special record."