1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk Quotes

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than a thousand pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. His style was not universally appreciated; the poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin dismissed him as "the elephant on the keyboard".Monk was renowned for a distinct look which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit during performances: while other musicians continued playing, Monk stopped, stood up, and danced for a few moments before returning to the piano.Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time magazine. The others are Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis.

✵ 10. October 1917 – 17. February 1982
Thelonious Monk photo
Thelonious Monk: 5   quotes 3   likes

Famous Thelonious Monk Quotes

“All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.”

Thelonious Monk

Interview in Down Beat magazine (28 October 1971)

“Monk enters the studio and starts playing, the rest of the musicians join him. After few minutes of play the technician from his room shouts and stops the band. ]
Monk: "Why did we stop?"
Technician: "I thought you were rehearsing."
Monk: "Aren't we always?"”

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk Documentary DVD.

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

Thelonious Monk

When questioned as to the future of jazz, as quoted in Jet magazine (31 March 1960), p. 30

“Which is the way to the toilet?”

Thelonious Monk

Circa 1966, reviewing "Easy Listening Blues" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWKavK4naYM from Oscar Peterson's With Respect to Nat, for DownBeat's "Blindfold Test"; reproduced in The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties (1966) by Leonard Feather, p. 30

“The piano ain't got no wrong notes.”

Thelonious Monk

Attributed by WKCR jazz host Phil Schaap, after a guest commented on how Monk played a lot of "wrong" notes. (March 1976)
Source: Evan Spring, Phil Schaap Interview https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/wkcr/content/phil-schaap-interview, WKCR, 5 October, 1992

Similar authors

John Coltrane photo
John Coltrane 4
American jazz saxophonist
Frank Zappa photo
Frank Zappa 129
American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil…
Elton John photo
Elton John 80
English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist
John Cage photo
John Cage 43
American avant-garde composer
Paul McCartney photo
Paul McCartney 50
English singer-songwriter and composer
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald 411
American novelist and screenwriter
Franco Battiato photo
Franco Battiato 4
Italian singer-songwriter, composer, and filmmaker
Jack Kerouac photo
Jack Kerouac 266
American writer
Theodor W. Adorno photo
Theodor W. Adorno 90
German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for …
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Vladimir Nabokov 193
Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor