Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. I don't write in any particular idiom, I write Charles Mingus.

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker's next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?

I never heard my music played the way I heard it in my head.

Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever.

Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. I don't write in any particular idiom, I write Charles Mingus.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.