Thelonious Monk

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.

I always wanted to play the piano, and jazz appealed to me.

All musicians stimulate each other. The vibrations get scattered around.

I don’t have a definition of Jazz. You’re just supposed to know it when you hear it.

First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.

So much of Jazz doesn’t have an audience other than music students or musicians.

Jazz is an art form that depends on its antecedents. There must be respect for the people that have gone before.

Vocalists must study music and know everything an instrumentalist needs to know.

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the night, or you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them…

You have to sound sad first, then maybe later you can sound good.

People who like Jazz feel the depth and soul and intelligence that the music expresses.

Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It’s not an occupation or profession, it’s a compulsion.

There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

For me, music and life are all about style

The Blues and Jazz will live forever. So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

It’s not uncomfortable for me to be a sideman, but I feel more comfortable as a bandleader.