Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

Jazz will be the classical music of the future.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor even eagle flew- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high, untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

When I grow up I want to be just like Benny Carter!

It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

I'd like to play for you one of my compositions, my only composition.

Many critics always saw and heard that my style comes from Roy Eldridge, which is true. But for many things, not only how to play the trumpet but the way to choose the notes, how to play them and how to phrase all of them, I took that from Sweets [Edison]. He really brought something new to the trumpet.

How do I know why Miles walks off the stage? Why don't you ask him? And besides, maybe we'd all like to be like Miles, and just haven't got the guts.

Miles got a mystique about him-plus he's at the top of his profession. And he's got way, way, way more money.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your magnificent indifference.

Where there's no mutual respect, there's trouble!

You can't steal a gift. Bird [Charlie Parker] gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.

I always try to teach by example and not force my ideas on a young musician. One of the reasons we're here is to be a part of this process of exchange.

Bop is at the end of the road. Now everybody wants dance music.

There have been two great revelations in my life: The first was bepop, the second was homeopathy.

I used to do a lot of apologizing for what the State Department had done.

Learn to play the piano, man, and then you can figure out crazy solos of your own.

Men have died for this music. You can't get more serious than that.

I was blessed that I got married early and had a good wife. That sort of kept me straight. Probably I would have been like Charlie Parker, you know, involved in drugs or alcohol or something like that if I hadn't had this stability.

Mutual respect is so important because as soon as it disappears in relations between you and the next person, there's trouble.

They're not particular whether you're playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance.

The sign of a mature musician is knowing what not to play.

I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It's time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It's time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.

I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it's supposed to be.

I know all the Latin-American rhythms quite well, but I don't play them exactly like they do in their own country - I add my personal touch.

Nothing surpasses my performances with small bands, especially with Charlie Parker. A small band doesn't forestall creativity.

Kenny Burrell is the grand master of jazz guitar.