— How did 49 minutes of jazz began?
— I was at Horace Silver's at Malibu, California, interviewing him for Le Mond de la Musique, when I got an insight to make a radio program about jazz from this interview and then to propose it to Liberty. The idea was warmly accepted by Liberty producer Ruslan Geliskhanov, he invited me to Munich and we made a pilot-set.〔(Денис Яковлев. Дмитрий Савицкий: «Я был антисоветчиком с младых ногтей» // Книжное Обозрение. 2006. )〕

Mario Corti (ex-director of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service): One of the reasons given for my removal was that I “resisted changes”. After my removal, the RFE/RL management put their own people in management positions in the Russian Service to carry out their plans. They shut down many cultural programs, including the brilliant and popular broadcasts by Sergei Iourienen. They also shut down serious analytical programs, “Commentators at a Roundtable,” as well as Paramonov’s show (which they later reinstated), shut down Savitsky’s popular program on jazz (recently reinstated). They changed the format of other shows, expanded the number of talk shows, and so on.〔( Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Has Lost Its Uniqueness Warns Former Director of Radio Liberty’s Russian Service )〕