Charlie Parker

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

You’ve got to learn your instrument.

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

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

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.

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.

For years the trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We starved.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing very powerful emotions. That’s what draws people towards it.

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

I’ve been a jazz artist playing pop and R&B my entire career.

One of the things I like about Jazz, kid, is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?

I prefer no one to teach me. I prefer to swing on my own.

Jazz has evolved with an inner necessity characteristic of any true art form.

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.

Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I’m happy with that.

I’m surprised Beyonce liked me. I met Beyonce!!

I’m going to make music out of whatever style it is, being true to the artform itself.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

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.