Charlie Parker

It’s not all smoke and mirrors. Some of it comes from books.

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

The time is now.

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

I can play all I know in eight bars.

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.

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

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

Keep on listening and tapping your feet.

Composing makes me feel like I’ve finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.

They’re not particular whether you’re playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance.

I don’t pop my cork for every man I see.

I did go through a trial-and-error period where I tried out lots of different guitars, but within a couple of years I was right back to the Les Paul. From that point it’s stayed with me ever since. I have other guitars—and I love a lot of them—but I’m most at home on a Les Paul. It’s interesting: most of the time I would even rather make a Les Paul do the things those other guitars do. From the get-go, the Les Paul spoke to me.

T-Bone was, to me, that sound of being in heaven.

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker’s next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?

Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.

We didn’t have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free

Nothing is out of the question for me. I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light…Then I’m grateful.

I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you’re tired and that’s all there is to it.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.

I always had a deep feeling to be one with the very minute I’m in.