Charles Mingus Quotes - Page 2

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• 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.

  Charles Mingus

  Teacher, Mean, Singing

  "Mingus/Mingus: Two Memoirs". Book by Janet Coleman and Al Youn, 1989.

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• Let my children have music! Let them hear live music.

  Charles Mingus

  Music, Children, My Children

  "What Is A Jazz Composer?". Charles Mingus' liner notes for "Let My Children Hear Music", album composed by Charles Mingus, January/February 1972.

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

  Charles Mingus

  Music, Reality, Escaping

  "An Open Letter To Miles Davis". Charles Mingus, Downbeat Magazine, November 30, 1955.

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• It (jazz) isn't like it used to be. The guys aren't together. They're all separated. Individuals now. Bird was a symbol. It was a clique, a clique of people. Who all believed in one thing: gettin' high. And playin'.

  Charles Mingus

  People, Guy, Bird

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

  Charles Mingus

  People, Matter, Discrimination

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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.

  Charles Mingus

  Writing, Men, Style

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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.

  Charles Mingus

  Play, Musician, Care

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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.

  Charles Mingus

  Music, Writing, Play

  "An Open Letter To Miles Davis". Charles Mingus, Downbeat Magazine, November 30, 1955.

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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.

  Charles Mingus

  Symphony, Listening, Attention

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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?

  Charles Mingus

  Writing, Thinking, Expression

  "Setting the Tempo: Fifty Years of Great Jazz Liner Notes". Book by Tom Piazza, 1996.

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

  Charles Mingus

  Als, Taste, Jazz

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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

  Charles Mingus

  Creativity, Simple, Plain Language

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

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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.

  Charles Mingus

  Basketball, Football, Team

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• I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

  Charles Mingus

  Music, Jazz, Spontaneous

  "What Is A Jazz Composer?". Charles Mingus' liner notes for "Let My Children Hear Music", album composed by Charles Mingus, January/February 1972.

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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.

  Charles Mingus

  Boys, Swings, Hands

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• 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?

  Charles Mingus

  Order, Play, Waiting

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