Charlie Parker

The time is now.

In Kansas City joints ran 9pm-5am. Pay was a $1.25 a night but somebody special like Count Basie could command $1.50.

Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.

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

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.

Music is your own experience, your own 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.

There is nothing more stuntastic than rapping in front of an orchestra.

You want the listener to find the song on their own, give too much away and it takes away from the imagination.

The first jazz I heard was Duke Ellington. I was learning to play classical music, but my teacher swapped out those lessons for jazz lessons because I had started adding grace notes to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.

A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life.

He knows I rip him off every day. He’s the godfather for me. Nobody can say they aren’t influenced by what Stevie Wonder has done.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

I’ve always had a deep love of live performance, it’s when I feel most alive.

Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn’t, I don’t really see a point to it.

In this era it’s harder for musicians to get together, … Back in the ’80s, we were all at the clubs, you ran into people all the time. Now, everybody’s kind of in their own room with their computers. I use making an album as an opportunity to connect with musicians.

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

When I got pretty good I went on the road with a group. We starved.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

I’ve had a lot of things to be proud of in my life, but none more than the Jazz festival.

We all do ‘do, re, mi’ but you got to find the other notes yourself.