Showing posts with label Thelonious Monk Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thelonious Monk Quotes. Show all posts
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. There's no beat anymore. You can't keep time with your foot. I believe that what is happening to jazz with people like Ornette Coleman, for instance, is bad. There's a new idea that consists in destroying everything and find what's shocking and unexpected; whereas jazz must first of all tell a story that anyone can understand." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"I don't conside myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can't develop any further. But I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself. Take a musician like John Coltrane. He is a perfect musician, who can give expression to all the possibilities of his instrument. But he seems to have difficulty expressing original ideas on it. That is why he keeps looking for ideas in exotic places. At least I don't have that problem, because, like I say, I find my inspiration in myself." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you're tired, that's all there is to it." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"Where's jazz going? I don't know? Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you're doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"If the music is eccentric, I have to be. Anybody talented in any way - they're called eccentric." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"You know what's the loudest noise in the world, man? The loudest noise in the world is silence." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"I guess, you know, if I didn't make it with the piano, I guess I would've been the biggest bum." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"I don't know what other people are doing - I just know about me." - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Quotes
"I can shoot pool, and I can play ping-pong. I'm pretty good at those games." - Thelonious Monk
