Tastes are created by the business interests. How else can you explain the popularity of Al Hirt?

I am Charles Mingus, half black man, not even white enough to pass for nothing but black. I am Charles Mingus, a famed jazzman, but not famed enough to make a living in this society.

Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don't care what you play anyway.

I always thought that no matter what kind of work people did, they should involve themselves totally with all the discrimination they ran into.

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.

Anybody can make the simple complecated. Creativity is making the complecated simple.

If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music.