Thelonious Monk

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

I don’t know where Jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.

The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.

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

After two takes you’re imitating yourself.

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

I want the music to connect to people; reach people every time I perform.

It’s not technique — it’s what you have to say.

You want the audience to feel what you’re doing.

We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don’t know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

There’s a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There’s also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.

I saw a vibraphone for the first time and knew immediately I had found my means of expression.

I could see that Bukka was born to be a bluesman, and I wondered if the same was true of me. I worried that I didn’t have his talent – or the talent of someone like Blind Lemon or T-Bone. I felt something beautiful inside Bukka’s soul. Even if I didn’t follow his style, I was moved by his sincerity. He loved telling stories, and used his blues to tell them. His blues was the book of his life. He sang about his rough times and fast time and loving times and angry times. He’d entertain at a party for two hundred people with the same enthusiasm as a party for twenty. Bukka gave it his all. His music had a consistency I admired. Like all the great bluesmen, he said, I am what I am. I wondered if I could be that steady and strong.

Of the whole bunch of guys who play hollow body guitar, I think Herb Ellis has the most drive.

If it ain’t fun, I want no part of it man. That’s the reason I play.

The only thing better than singing is more singing.

One shouldn’t be in the habit of quoting oneself.

I listen to all kinds of songs. There’s something to be learned from every type of music and from the one making it, whether it’s pop or jazz or hip-hop.