Thelonious Monk Quotes About Jazz

Quotes about: Jazz

• 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 doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Years, Play

• When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.

  Thelonious Monk

  Hate, Real, Kids

• Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears.

  Thelonious Monk

  Sound, Ears, Want

• Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

  Thelonious Monk

  Crazy, Thinking, People

• Just because you're not a drummer doesn't mean you don't have to keep time.

  Thelonious Monk

  Mean, Jazz, Drummer

• Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Memorable, Thinking

• A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Imagination, World

• A genius is the one most like himself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Genius, Jazz, Monk

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Definitions, Jazz

• I didn't know there were 2 ten o'clocks in a day.

  Thelonious Monk

  Jazz, Clock, Knows

• 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

  Music, Fashion, Believe

• Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

  Thelonious Monk

  Running, Adventure, Use

• After two takes you're imitating yourself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Two, Jazz

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Anything Goes, Jazz

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Pieces, Jazz

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Bops, Jazz

• I find my inspiration in myself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Inspiration, Jazz

• Miles'd got killed if he hit me.

  Thelonious Monk

  Jazz, Miles, Ifs

• Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Cat, Men

• I made the wrong mistakes

  Thelonious Monk

  Mistake, Jazz, Made

• Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.

  Thelonious Monk

  Country, Play, Trying

• Jazz is my adventure.

  Thelonious Monk

  Adventure, Jazz

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