That sound in tune to you?.. Sounds sharp to me. Sounds like I'm playing sharp all the time. My singing teacher told us you should do that. Maybe I got it from her. She said singers when they grow old have a tendency to go flat. So if you sing sharp as a young person, as you get older and go flat, you'll be in tune. In other words, it's never thought good to be flat. It means you can't get to the tone.

My music is evidence of my souls will to live.

I was always doing revolutionary things, things that would alert people, so they would stop being so subservient.

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.

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.

They're singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

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?