Thelonious Monk

[on Ornette Coleman] Man, that cat is nuts!

I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you’re tired and that’s all there is to it.

I’m famous… ain’t that a bitch?

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

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

I’m just trying to create context for me to improve my musicianship.

Jazz to me is a living music. It’s a music that since its beginning has expressed the feelings, the dreams, hopes, of the people.

When Bird came on the scene, it was shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark and then there was light.

It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

We usually never got out of there before four or five o’clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.

Music activates the brain at a high level.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

It’s Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, you know. They got a musical mind together and uh, you can’t explain it.

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it’s composition.

I thought I had swell ideas and wonderful musicians but no one else did.

I’ve always liked the Freddie King/B. B. King rich tone, and at the same time, I like the manic Buddy Guy/Otis Rush Strat tone. So I’m always caught in the middle of the Gibson and Fender sounds. If I’m playing my black [Fender] Strat, and I’m in the middle of a blues, I kind of wish I was playing a [Gibson] Les Paul. Then again, if I was playing a Les Paul, the sound would be great, but I’d be saying, “Man, I wish I had the Stratocaster neck!”

Never play anything the same way twice.

My style is to just play. The more “live” you capture your music-the more unthought-out-the more magical it is.