A Quote by Steve Lacy

When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.

Steve Lacy

Quote Topics

Club Full Heard Monk Musicians Person Place Playing Public Quartet Small

Quote Author

Steve Lacy
American - Musician
July 23, 1934 - June 4, 2004

When I first started playing music in 1955, there was just a small body of people that knew it. It was a very esoteric type of thing.

Steve Lacy

The first jazz pianist I heard was Thelonious Monk. My father was listening to an album of his called 'Monk's Dream' almost every day from the time I was born.

Benny Green

When my ban was relaxed I began playing club cricket. Imagine, for a person who had played at Lord's, to play with a club team who didn't have proper kit against another club team in Lahore.

Mohammad Amir

It's always hard the moment you decide to stop playing. It doesn't matter if you're at a small club or a big club: it's the end of your playing career, so that's always going to be a big moment for any player.

Edwin van der Sar

When I was 15 years old in 1955, I heard of Rosa Parks. I heard the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on our radio.

John Lewis

Don't give up! I believe in you all. A person's a person, no matter how small! And you very small persons will not have to die If you make yourselves heard! So come on, now, and TRY!

Dr. Seuss

I got a chance to listen to and watch Thelonious Monk and his quartet play two shows a night, for six weeks. It was a great education. There was my university, man.

Chick Corea

When you are playing for a top club, when the pressure is on, when scrutiny is everywhere, you need some privacy. You need a place away from public view where people can be open, and, at times, difficult conversations need to be had.

Paul Scholes

At first I didn't understand what [Thelonious Monk] was doing, but I went back again, and what I can say about Monk is that I heard ancient Africa in his music. When he played, it was like a ballet. He captured the sound of the universe. Monk could take a triad, a simple chord, and make it sound dissonant. I'm sure that element he had in his piano was part of the two years he spent traveling with his mother in gospel music in the tent shows.

Randy Weston

I know of musicians who have played together for decades who hate each other. The Modern Jazz Quartet for one.

Gary Burton

Punk to me was a form of free speech. It was a moment when suddenly all kinds of strange voices that no reasonable person could ever have expected to hear in public were being heard all over the place.

Greil Marcus

'So Icy' is always going to be one of my favorites because this is a song that blew my mind. I was just making beats for the fun of it. I went to the club and heard the song being played, so I asked the DJ to stop playing the song, and the whole club started rapping word for word.

Zaytoven

Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.

Miles Davis

Mickey Gee will be remembered for his guitar playing by the public and true fellow musicians.

Shakin' Stevens

Monk was a gentle person, gentle and beautiful, but he was strong as an ox. And if I had ever said something about punching Monk out in front of his face - and I never did - then somebody should have just come and got me and taken me to the madhouse, because Monk could have just picked my little ass up and thrown me through a wall.

Miles Davis

In all modesty, my summing up of 1955-6 and 1956-7 must be that no club in the country could live with Manchester United.