Benny Carter Quotes

"In all honesty, I think I just played what I felt was right for me. And I think I would have done the same thing, even if I'd been born later, when Charlie Parker was influencing everybody. The truth is, I never gave it much thought. I just played what I had to play." - Benny Carter

Benny Carter Quotes

"I didn't know Charlie Parker well, but I spent some time with him, and he was articulate and well-spoken with a lot of curiosity about music and the world. But the only way he seems to be depicted is as a junkie. And that's not the full picture." - Benny Carter

Art Pepper Quotes

"The way so many musicians slavishly imitated Coltrane, that's the way it was with Charlie Parker — only even more so, if that can be imagined. Everyone that I knew changed totally. But they took the worst things of his playing—that harsh sound; it just didn't come off the way they did it. The way he did it was great, Their way wasn't good at all. I just would listen to 'em, say: 'That's a Bird imitator', and that would be it; I would never care to listen to them again." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Jack Kerouac Quotes

"... and up on the stand [Charlie] Bird Parker with solemn eyes who'd been busted fairly recently and had now returned to a kind of bop dead Frisco but had just discovered or been told about the Red Drum, the great new generation gang wailing and gathering there, so here he was on the stand, examinign them with his eyes as he blew his now-settled-down-into-regulated-design "crazy" notes ... whom I saw distinctly digging Mardou several times also myself directly into my eye looking to search if really I was that great writer I thought myself to be as if he knew my thoughts and ambitions or remembered me from other night clubs and other coasts, other Chicagos - not a challenging look but the king and founder of the bop generation at least the sound of it in digging his audience digging the eyes, the secret eyes him-watching, as he just pursed his lips and let great lungs and immortal fingers work, his eyes separate and interested and humane, the kindest jazz musician there could be while being and therefore naturally the greatest - watching Marldou and me in the infancy of our love and probably wondering why, or knowing it wouldn't last, or seeing who it was would be hurt..." - Jack Kerouac

source: The Subterraneans (by Jack Kerouac)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Well I never copied [Django Reinhardt]. I don't remember that I copied any guitar player note-for-note. But I remember copying Charlie Parker note for note." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Shorty Rogers Quotes

"When Bird came on the scene, it was just as shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark, and then the light appeared for the first time." - Shorty Rogers

Les Paul Quotes

"As a guitarist Charlie [Parker] was simply the best around...he had a way of getting on one note and driving it right into the ground." - Les Paul

Charles Mingus Quotes

"Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'" - Charles Mingus

Ben Sidran Quotes

"If Charlie Parker were alive today, somebody would try to cut a disco single with and try and get him to sell three million." - Ben Sidran

Jay McShann Quotes

"They said Bird played bebop, but Bird could still swing. I've heard a lot of guys play bebop, but they wasn't swinging." - Jay McShann

Charles Mingus Quotes

It [jazz] isn't like it used to be. The guys aren't together. They're all separated. Individuals now. Bird was a symbol. It was a clique, a clique of people. Who all believed in one thing: gettin' high. And playin'." - Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Quotes

"I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around." - Charles Mingus

Ray Brown Quotes

"I went up to his [Hank Jones'] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York." - Ray Brown

Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

"We loved one another, man. I mean all those stories about the rift ... there was no question of a rift between Charlie Parker and me." - Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

"It was a financial fiasco because all our checks bounced. Charlie Parker cashed his at the box office, so he was 'in'. Then the master tapes were taken by [Charles] Mingus and put out, and we didn't receive any money for years and years and years and years." - Dizzy Gillespie (on "Jazz at Massey Hall")

Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

"Nothing surpasses my performances with small bands, especially with Charlie Parker. A small band doesn't forestall creativity." - Dizzy Gillespie

John Coltrane Quotes

"I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music." - John Coltrane