15 Quotes by Donald Byrd

It's an incredible dilemma to be an artist of color and to always be in denial about that, saying, 'I'm a choreographer first and then I'm black,' when in fact, that's not the case. I'm black first and then I'm also a choreographer.

I skipped school one day to see Dizzy Gillespie, and that's where I met Coltrane. Coltrane and Jimmy Heath just joined the band, and I brought my trumpet, and he was sitting at the piano downstairs waiting to join Dizzy's band. He had his saxophone across his lap, and he looked at me and he said, 'You want to play?'

They use all of the music that I did in the '50s, '60s and the '70s behind people like Tupac and LL Cool J. I'm into all that stuff.

They don't want to pay the additional price of the gas, but we don't have anything to do with regulating the price of it.

In some ways the piece is like pages of a notebook that I've written thoughts on. It's a choreographer's notebook.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.