Bebop Quotes

I first met Miles Davis about 1947 and played a few jobs with him and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. During this period, he was coming into his own, and I could see him extending the boundaries of jazz even further.

When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.

As a very small girl, I listened to Charlie Parker and loved him and Max Roach and people like that.

Jazz should be recognized as music of the people, based in a lot of accents and melodies. What is jazz but music that people danced to? Jazz has the dynamic thing. I don't think you have to be playing only Charlie Parker licks on your horn or whatever the new version of that is.

Jazz told people about the special music that came out of America and about America in general and this kind of liberty and freedom that we have.

I usually listen to surf music, not much instrumental music, and when I was younger I listened to jazz.

My primary influences were the best jazz players from the 50's and 60's and later some of the pop people from the same time period along with the better of the well known blues musicians.

You know, jazz is the mother of all American music. R&B and pop and rap and everything are the branches on the main tree of the life of music, American music, which is jazz.

Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.

Jazz music is the American's music of choice. This is that music that the Negroes invented to satisfy their primitive inclinations, as well as their desire to be noisy.

Jazz, and the history of jazz, is the history of America.

When I came to New York after high school in 1959 and started to meet musicians, 'Hot House' was like a standard jam session tune.

Jazz music creates so many phenomenal figures.

As far as I'm concerned, blues and jazz are the great American contributions to music.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

Jazz is a beautiful word. I love it.

Jazz is a part of me.

I grew up listening to Ravel, Debussy, Bartok and jazz like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhart. It was incredibly inspiring! And I was given a guitar and I said 'What the hell is this?!'

Jazz music is the power of now.

There have been two great revelations in my life: The first was bepop, the second was homeopathy.

See, we started out with a foundation of blues. But then we added people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane to the mix and gave rock n' roll a much more complex structure. It made it possible to play more than three chords.

Charlie Parker stuck out in my mind.

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.

Jazz is the American’s preferred music, and it is created by Negroes to satisfy their love of noise and to whet their sexual desires ...

Jazz was my first love.