Charlie Parker

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

For me, I started on a Les Paul and went through years of playing other guitars and just came back full circle to what was more natural to me.

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

Man, as long as people want to hear Jazz, I’ll give it to them.

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.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

I think that what is important is that the music be honest and direct and that it is relevant to today.

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It’s useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

There’s always room for improvisation or changes of expression.

I sing like I feel.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands …If they act too hip, you know they can’t play shit.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, ‘That’s just that ole blues singer.’

Start well and end well. The middle will look after itself.

Playing gives me as much good feeling now as it did when I was a bitty kid.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

The essentials of Jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing and instrumental personality.