Charles Mingus Quotes
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Since the white man says he came from the evolution of animals, well, maybe the black man didn't. The white man has made so many errors in the handling of people that maybe he did come from a gorilla or a fish and crawl up on the sand and then into the trees. Of course, evolution doesn't take God into consideration. I don't think people learned to do all the things they do through evolution.
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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.
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I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.
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My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like an apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable.
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I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.
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Let my children have music! Let them hear live music.
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Jazz music is a language of the emotions.
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I was born swinging and clapped my hands in church as a little boy, but I've grown up and I like to do things other than just swing. But blues can do more than just swing.
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Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don't care what you play anyway.
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Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
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Making the complicated simple is true creativity.
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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.
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Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. I don't write in any particular idiom, I write Charles Mingus.
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Jazz is the language of the emotions.
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I never heard my music played the way I heard it in my head.
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If you think this is weird, just look at yourselves.
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Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'
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I'm too busy playing. When I'm playing I don't pay attention to who's listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don't listen to one instrument; you listen to music.
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They're singing your praises while stealing your phrases.
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What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music?
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If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats
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In high school I was on the basketball team, but the coach did something I didn't dig and the next day he looked up and saw me practising with the football team.
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My music is evidence of my souls will to live.
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Life has many changes. Tomorrow it may rain, and it's supposed to be sunshine, 'cause it's summertime. But God's got a funny soul, he plays like Charlie Parker.
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Tastes are created by the business interests. How else can you explain the popularity of Al Hirt?
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I've got a feeling that if it's so easy for you - the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say.
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Everything I do is Mingus.
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I was always doing revolutionary things, things that would alert people, so they would stop being so subservient.
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Our nights didn't begin until after noon. Because in the old days, you'd start Birdland at 8:30 or 9 pm and play until 4 in the morning. Then you'd go out to the corner and talk to a couple of musicians - I used to talk to Oscar Pettiford a whole lot - you'd stand there till 7, 8 or 9, or else go down to the jam session at Minton's.
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Bach is how buildings got taller. It's how we got to the moon.
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