Advice from Thelonious Monk
 

Supposedly from a notebook belonging to Steve Lacy:

that is fucking awesome. I love ephemera like this. thanks

Amazing. Amazing. I love Monk. Thank you for this!

"Don't play everything (or every time); Let some things go by"

--This quote is probably the best way to sum up Monk's magic.

I really like this one: "Make the drummer sound GOOD."

You've been -FUPPETED-

I have to admit, I don't know what that means. But thanks (?) anyway.

click the big picture in his sig haha

Really good shit. Alot of his advice i've been given from good friends and have therefore given to my band. & it's all true. No matter what kind of music you play, this advice should be the first thing you learn

Ahhh, you put it on your blog, I see :)

DDD, agreed. You don't have to play jazz to apply these rules and thus improv(e) your music.

It's weird I was following the thelonious gospel and didn't even know it!

edit: oh yeah rob, btw I just checked out yr blog for the first time. impressive! u put alot of time into that shit man!

everything he says is true.
Monk was the shit

I also only now have checked your blog, and I am sorry, for my own sake. Great stuff there.

BRILLIANT.

excellent, thx

except Rob, where are The Harlequins in the 'For your ears' section??!!?

My favorite musician ever. Awesome.

do you know if this is supposed to be his actual handwriting or notes someone else jotted down?

i hope it's his because it looks like mine

"they tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along + spoil it."

hahahaha

that is probably Steve Lacy's handwriting.

I am guessing that Monk's writing would be quite cryptic.

give me a link man! I got all the bands and music sites in the FOR YOUR EARS section from people on this forum.

From what I could gather, it seems to be Steve Lacy's handwriting, cause it was his notebook. He apparently jotted down things that Monk had said or told him.

Monk's. I think.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2005/02...ion050221.html

wow! what handwriting! fucking shit looks like arabic~!

If Monk did indeed write that, I doubt he always wrote like that. I'm not saying he didn't, I don't know enough about him to make that claim, but wow, I mean, if that was his everyday handwriting, that would be beyond impressive and just straight up crazy...

according to the site it is a high school notebook that was donated by his son for a large auction of jazz memorabilia. That would be his FINE PENMANSHIP!

I bet thelonious had one monster chicken scritch handwriting casually though!

i wouldn't be surprised if he wrote fancy all the time, or if he had the worst writing ever, or if he quit writing stuff at one point and never again touched a pen

you just can't guess when it comes to monk lol, full of surprises until the end

Afterthefact - excellent and excellent once more. I'm afraid I can't rep you at the moment :(, but that really is a top-drawer find. Weill done!

you've got to dig it to dig, you dig?

I dunno. The same could be said about his music. People thought he was off his rocker.

Absolutely! As Jim Jarmusch said, you're listening to Monk play a beautiful melody, and all of a sudden you hear this jagged PLINK-PLINK, and you think this guy's nuts!

Yeah, I can see that. You never know what you are going to get with great jazz pianists. I remember going to this jazz show where they had free wine (boxed, of course) and cake and there was this old black guy trying to get wine and his hand shook so much that he was spilling his cup all over. He was sort of embarrassed, and said "Oh man, I'm just makin' a big ol' mess." I felt bad for him, but then they announced the band, and he gets up there on piano! And he KILLED!

This was just a small group from Chicago too. Not saying that they are any less talented, because you never know where the next genius will pop up. But I can only imagine someone like Monk was probably full of these types of surprises.

especially when he would get up in the middle of a solo and DANCE!

Well that's what he said, right? "You've got it! If you don't want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any case, you got it!"

He definitely had it.