Charles Mingus

“They're singing your praises while stealing your phrases.”

“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”

“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach.”

“Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise.”

“What is a jazz composer? I'll tell you. He's a guy who when he's broke he can't write, and when he's not broke, he doesn't want to.”

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”

“My music is evidence of my soul's will to live.”

“You can't improvise on nothing, man. You've gotta improvise on something.”

“Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.”

“My music is black classical music.”

“I am a musician, a composer, a conductor, what you will.”

“I'm not a jazz musician, I'm a musician.”

“Good-bye, pork pie hat.”

“I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.”

“Don't be a slave to what you've learned.”

“In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.”