I don't have a definition of Jazz. You're just supposed to know it when you hear it. Thelonious Monk More Quotes by Thelonious Monk More Quotes From Thelonious Monk 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 play years Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself. Thelonious Monk genius done thinking The loudest noise in the world is silence. Thelonious Monk silence noise world Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy Thelonious Monk crazy people thinking Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture. Thelonious Monk rock-n-roll music trying There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others. Thelonious Monk notes 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 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 The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances. Thelonious Monk deep-thought cat humor 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 use running adventure Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do. Thelonious Monk important play All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians. Thelonious Monk mathematician musician math Jazz is freedom. You think about that. Thelonious Monk music memorable thinking Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it. Thelonious Monk home feels way It can't be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean! Thelonious Monk different sound mean Just because you're not a drummer doesn't mean you don't have to keep time. Thelonious Monk jazz drummer mean I don't consider 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 inspiration expression ideas After two takes you're imitating yourself. Thelonious Monk jazz music two 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 fashion music believe Everyone is a genius at being themselves Thelonious Monk genius
