Charlie Parker: Line

Charlie Parker was American jazz saxophonist and composer. Explore interesting quotes on line.

Charlie Parker: 12 quotes 15 likes

“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.”

Charlie Parker

As quoted in Bird : The Legend Of Charlie Parker (1977) by Robert George Reisner, p. 27

Wisdom , Art , Music

“l'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it. … I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.”

Charlie Parker

On his personal stylistic breakthrough, quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955) edited by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, . p 354

Thinking , Change , Time

“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.”

Charlie Parker

c. 1939 quoted in Masters of Jazz