A Quote by Flea

I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians.

Flea

Quote Topics

Charles Charlie Grew Grew Up Guys Incredible Jazz Lester Young Musicians Old Parker Up Young

Quote Author

Flea
Australian - Musician
Born: October 16, 1962

In those days before hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy, and before learning of the so-called bebop era--by the way, I have some thoughts about that word, "bebop"--my first jazz hero ever, jazz improvisor hero, was Lester Young. I was a big "Lester Young-oholic," and all of my buddies were Lester Young-oholics. We'd get together and dissect, analyze, discuss, and listen to Lester Young's solos for hours and hours and hours. He was our god.

J. J. Johnson

I grew up listening to Ravel, Debussy, Bartok and jazz like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhart. It was incredibly inspiring! And I was given a guitar and I said 'What the hell is this?!'

Allan Holdsworth

Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben - an incredible tennis player - loved jazz. Jazz musicians used to stay at their house.

Robert Trujillo

I listened to classical music. I listened to jazz. I listened to everything. And I started becoming interested in the sounds of jazz. And I went to a concert of Jazz at the Philharmonic when we lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and I saw Charlie Parker play and Billie Holiday sing and Lester Young play, and that did it. I said, 'That's what I want to do.'

Charlie Haden

I grew up watching a lot of old movies, so getting to ask about making movies in the '70s and people he was friends with, like Orson Welles, Lillian Hellman and Charlie Chaplin, and hearing a first-person account was pretty incredible.

Alden Ehrenreich

Charlie Parker was a genius, as was Lester Young.

Sebastian Coe

I grew up a huge Roy Orbison fan. He had such a crazy range. And I grew up listening to old jazz, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone. I remember trying to imitate female jazz singers because I had a higher range.

Borns

I grew up in a small segregated steel town 6o miles outside of Cleveland, my parents grew up in the segregated south. As a family we struggled financially, and I grew up in the '60s and '70s where overt racism ruled the day.

Lori Lightfoot

I grew up - obviously I'm from Philly, where Kobe is from, so we grew up idolizing Kobe. He meant everything to us.

Markieff Morris

Charlie Parker was the greatest individual musician that ever lived. Every instrument in the band tried to copy Charlie Parker, and in the history of jazz there had never been one man who influenced all the instruments.

Gary Giddins

I grew up in the Great Depression, and the jazz artists and Dixieland musicians were at the core of our communications and enjoyment. They were not passing fancies. They are something that is, and will be, listened to again and again. I have a space of reverence for some of those old jazz stars such as Sydney Bechet and Louis Armstrong.

Harry Belafonte

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?'

Miguel Zenon

The place where I grew up is the center of surfing. Everyone who grows up on the North Shore surfs, and from October to March, you have the best waves in the world within a 5- to 7-mile stretch. I grew up in the center of these incredible sunsets and all these incredible waves. And then we have the Triple Crown of Surfing.

John John Florence

I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood. I grew up around drugs, alcohol, prostitution, I grew up around everything, and I think part of seeing that from really young has made me really steer very far away from it in all of its forms.

Alicia Keys

There was not a lot of rock n' roll in the house. Our parents didn't think it was very groovy, and I tend to agree with them. If you grew up with Charlie Parker, Bill Haley wasn't very hip.