Quotes from Charles Mingus

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

So he must use what time he has creating now for the future and utilize the past only to help the future, not as a razor strop for guilts and fears that inhibit his very being. Or like it said at the end of a labor song I liked a lot when I was a kid: what I mean is, take it easy, but take it.

Telling the Parkses your father was an African chieftan has the same sound to me as the white man telling me I'm a nigger.

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

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

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