Charlie Parker

I can play all I know in eight bars.

I am a devout musician.

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.

Once I could play what I heard inside me, that’s when I was born.

I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That’s when I was born.

I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it.

You can have tone and technique but without originality you ain’t really nowhere. Gotta be original.

Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

Once we’re inside a tune, we can do anything with it.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy’s playing blues like we play, he’s in high school. When he starts playing jazz it’s like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

Never lose the groove to find a note.

Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific.

Jazz never ends… it just continues.

I sing like I feel.

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

You’re just a little too hip for the room. It’s not good to be too hip because two hips make an ass.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.

Music is a reservoir… of sounds.

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them.

You have to understand the styles and it’s good to study those that came before us.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition. If you don’t understand what it’s about, you’re depriving yourself of being really able to communicate this poem.