Charlie Parker

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

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

I can play all I know in eight bars.

The time is now.

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

You’ve got to learn your instrument.

You don’t chose your inspirations, they chose you.

You blows who you is.

All I play is truth and emotion.

I still love the whole history of Jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

Jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

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

I got out of the car and there was a knife in my neck. The guy says, “Don’t move.” And the drummer got out of the car, and he got a gun in his head. This was my entrance to the South Side of Chicago. But it was necessary, because I wanted to play jazz.

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.

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.

We open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to arrive at something new and different.

Talk of God is most often in church. Is there a God outside of church? I hope so. But how should I know? How does anybody know?

Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

How are you going to know what’s new to play if you haven’t listened to everything that’s old?

[on Ornette Coleman] Man, that cat is nuts!

Don’t say Aretha is making a comeback, because I’ve never been away!