Charlie Parker

They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Music is your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

Master your instrument, master the music and then forget all that and just play.

You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.

[On urging Nyro to tell Barbara Streisand that ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ had been personally written for her] It’s not a big lie.

I wasn’t interested in practicing Bach; I was too busy digging Horace Silver!

To get the music the way you want it, there’s a lot of work involved.

When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

If you must listen to bad music, please use headphones.

Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.

It is this tendency to play with manic enthusiasm on every possible occasion that distinguishes the amateur Jazz musician from the professional.

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

That’s a great thing about jazz. We leave it a little space so that we have the opportunity to go where the moment takes us

Jazz music today is from the head and not the heart.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

Your sound is you and what you really feel inside.

I like the music. I love it and live it in fact, but for me the business part just plain stinks.