“I studied Bird’s creative vein with the same passion and understanding with which I’d studied the scores of my favorite classical composers, because I found a purity in his music that until then I had only found in classical music. Bird was the cause of my realization that jazz improvisation, as well as jazz composi­tion, is the equal of classical music if the performer is a creative person.” (Mingus, quoted in Myself When I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingusby Gene Santoro)