A Quote by Thelonious Monk

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

Thelonious Monk

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Definition Hear Jazz Just Know Supposed

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Thelonious Monk
American - Musician
October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982

What I believe to be jazz is constructed and improvised music which is in the air right now. But I don't think that's most people's definition of jazz, you know? We don't know what we're talking about, because we don't know the definition.

John Lurie

You weren't supposed to hear Elvis Presley. You weren't supposed to hear Jerry Lee Lewis. You weren't supposed to hear Robert Johnson. You weren't supposed to hear Hank Williams. And they told the story of the secret America.

Bruce Springsteen

What makes jazz different is that you can't predict it, it's all about freedom. Just when you think you know what you're going to hear there'll be a left turn, a jazz musician will change it up.

Gregory Porter

Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.'

Wayne Shorter

When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

Robert Glasper

Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon.

Nat Wolff

Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?

John Lurie

I don't really sing... I just hear notes so I know what it's supposed to sound like, if that makes sense. You ever hear someone try to teach a choir how to sing, but they can't sing? That's me.

Roddy Ricch

I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that.

Harvey Pekar

I always leaned toward free jazz... experimental jazz and progressive jazz. I feel like jazz is just part of the flavor and palette that you have as a musician to experiment with.

Arturo O'Farrill

The music industry used to be able to control a single dance on the very smallest level of when people are supposed to hear it, and when they're supposed to start liking it, and when they're supposed to start buying it. And that's trashed, you know, that big machine that takes control and works albums for a long period.

Robyn

Milton, of all people, gave the most perfect definition of the state of mind required to play jazz: ' with wanton heed and giddy cunning.' That's how you play jazz.

Paul Desmond

I always used to say I'm definitely not a straight-ahead jazz singer, because then there's people who would hear what I do and say, 'Is it jazz? I don't know...' Whatever it is, it really comes down to creating music that makes people feel something.

Gretchen Parlato

To most people, jazz-fusion means this dreadful synthetic jazz-rock thing, this jazz-Muzak, which I detest. They also think of jazz as a specific form of music, while to me it's just the opposite.

Allan Holdsworth

My husband is a composer, so he plays piano all the time and I sit there and clap telling my unborn child, 'Hear me clap, hear the music.' I know music, in general, is supposed to be good for babies to hear.

Danica McKellar

I grew up in a jazz household. They made me listen to jazz before I could hear my Motown.

Jeffrey Osborne

A Quote by Thelonious Monk

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