Bird of Prey

Poet Philip Larkin:

Charlie Parker wrecked jazz by - or so they tell me - using the chromatic rather than the diatonic scale. The diatonic scale is what you use if you want to write a national anthem, or a love song, or a lullaby. The chromatic scale is what you use to give the effect of drinking a quinine martini and having an enema simultaneously.

- The Paris Reivew Interviews, Vol. II (Ed. Philip Gourevitch)

(I'm still making my leisurely way through the series. I'd still recommend it! Where else are you going to learn special tidbits like: Dorothy Parker subscribed to undertaker magazines?)