Sunday, January 25, 2009



This is the great Thelonious Monk's advice to his one-time soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy about playing and living the life of a jazz musician. It could well be all one needs to know on the subject. Another example of Thelonious the philosopher. Click on to it to get a larger, more readable, image.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Woody,
Someone told me about your blog the other day. As soon as I saw Monk's Advice, I knew I was in the right place.
"Don't play everything...let some things go by." Pity these remarks weren't addressed to John Coltrane. But then I always preferred the spare and elegant Lacy...
BOB

Woody Haut said...

Bob,
Can't say I agree with you about Coltrane, though I suspect it's a case of there not being any recordings that do their performances justice. But I always liked what Coltrane said about playing a Monk tune, something along the lines of, if you make a mistake, it's like falling into a black hole.