Are we, as humans, gaining any insight on how to talk about ourselves and how something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context. So I want to continue those dialogues. Those are the things I want to foster.
Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.
I listen to anything anyone gives me. I always go back to a few basic favorites. I can always listen to Django Reinhardt and hear something I haven't heard before. I like to listen to Art Tatum and Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Those are guys who never seem to run out of ideas.
It's in my stars to invent; I was born on Madame Curie's birthday. I have this need for originals, for innovation. That's why I like Charlie Parker.
When it's all said and done, jazz with a capital J is where I'm coming from. Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk - that's what I really studied when I was a teenager and what really fueled my passion.
I don't play the traditional Charlie Parker songs. But I do improvise and I do create with my instrument, and that to me is jazz. But there are people who use the word 'jazz' only in a traditional sense, and they would be offended by that, and that's fine.
Charlie Parker is my greatest inspiration as a saxophone player - anything that involves him entails a large amount of respect.
I grew up listening to Puerto Rican music like everybody else. But when I listened to Charlie Parker for the first time, I said, 'How does this guy play so fast?'
You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.
Charlie Parker was a genius, as was Lester Young.
