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

Dizzy Gillespie

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Dizzy Gillespie
Age: 75 †
Born: 1917
Born: October 21
Died: 1993
Died: January 6
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Musician
Pianist
Recording Artist
Singer
Trumpeter
Cheraw
South Carolina
John Birks Gillespie
John Birks Dizzy Gillespie
Department
Jazz
State
Used
States
Done
Apologizing

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It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
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Kenny Burrell is the grand master of jazz guitar.
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We loved one another, man. I mean all those stories about the rift ... there was no question of a rift between Charlie Parker and me.
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When I grow up I want to be just like Benny Carter!
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They're not particular whether you're playing a flat 5th or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance.
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The idea of life is to give and receive.
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I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it's supposed to be.
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I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it's supposed to be in that particular spot...You have many things to pick from when you're playing, so you try to train yourself to pick out the best things that you know.
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I'd like to play for you one of my compositions, my only composition.
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Some days you get up and put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win. Some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die and the horn wins.
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Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your magnificent indifference.
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I don't care much about music. What I like is sounds.
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The sign of a mature musician is knowing what not to play.
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Bop is at the end of the road. Now everybody wants dance music.
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Nothing surpasses my performances with small bands, especially with Charlie Parker. A small band doesn't forestall creativity.
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As a musician you have to keep one foot back in the past and have one foot forward into the future.
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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.
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You can't steal a gift. Bird [Charlie Parker] gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.
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There have been two great revelations in my life: The first was bepop, the second was homeopathy.
Dizzy Gillespie