"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art."...Charlie Parker
Posted by jordanreed on :
"I kept thinking there's bound to be something else…. I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it."
Posted by jordanreed on :
Nickname origin: There are two stories. 1. He lived "free as a bird." 2. When touring with Jay McShann, they accidentally hit a chicken (a yardbird) with their car and Parker made them stop to pick it up so he could have his landlady cook it for him.
Posted by jordanreed on :
"…you know there's quite a number of things wrong with me. I go to this heart specialist, you know, give him a hundred dollars for the relief of my heart. He treats me, don't do no good; my heart is still messed up. I go to this ulcer man, give him seventy-five dollars to cool my ulcers out; it don't do no good. There's a little cat in a dark alley around the corner. I give him five dollars for a bag of sh*t; my ulcer's gone, my heart trouble gone, everything gone, all my ailments gone." - Charlie Parker speaking to Walter Bishop.
Posted by jordanreed on :
...the neighbours threatened to ask my mother to move once when we were living out West. They said I was driving them crazy with the horn. I used to put in at least 11 to 15 hours a day [...] I did that for over a period of 3 to 4 years." Charlie Parker - 1954