“If you come on a band tense, you're going to play tense. If you come a little bi…” — Charlie Parker

I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it. I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing.

Ever since I've ever heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise - as clean as possible, anyway, and more or less tuned to people. Something they could understand, something that was beautiful, you know?

I became bitter, hard, cold. I was always on a panic - couldn't buy clothes or a good place to live.

I put quite a bit of study into the horn, that's true. In fact, the neighbors threatened to ask my mother to move once, you know.