Charles Mingus

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

They’re singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

In my music, I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is because I’m changing all the time.

Let my children have music.

Just because I’m playing Jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.

Good Jazz is when the leader jumps on the piano, waves his arms and yells. Fine Jazz is when a tenorman lifts his foot in the air. Great Jazz is when he heaves a piercing note for 32 bars and collapses on his hands and knees. A pure genius of Jazz is manifested when he and the rest of the orchestra runaround the room while the rhythm section grimaces and dances around their instruments.

He knows I rip him off every day. He’s the godfather for me. Nobody can say they aren’t influenced by what Stevie Wonder has done.

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra.

I just think swing is a matter of some good things put together that you can really pat your foot by. I can’t define it beyond that.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.

We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it’s beautiful, not necessarily commercial.

Jazz is about being in the moment.

I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.

Invest yourself in everything you do. There’s fun in being serious.

Play the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you play.

The blues comes right back to a person’s feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don’t know nothing about the blues, please believe me.

Just because I’m playing Jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.

Have you ever wondered why young people take to music like fish to water? Maybe it’s because music is fun, plain and simple.

Your ear is the final judge to what sounds right and what sounds wrong.

The more you listen, the more your hear.