Thelonious Monk's advice to Steve Lacy

Now there is some inside stuff. It's like a jazz sutra. Thanks Tairaku!

"Make the drummer sound good."

Agreed. There is a wealth of musical wisdom in these spontaneous notes. I especially like his emphasis to leaving some emptiness in the song.



Nothing is more hideous than a nonstop and constant flow of crowded notes, in some kind of frenzied race from the very beginning, to the the end of a tune. Without proper phrasing and significant pauses, it's a tangle of noise. Even the musical surrealist Captain Beefheart understood that, irrespective of the bizarre cacophony he wove, with his... err... "music"(?).

I learned early on that such genius players as John Coltrane and Rahsaan Roland Kirk... would rise, build intnesity, include stops and fall away, within the design of their wildly explosive solos. Even the eye of a hurricane has a central fulcrum of stillness. Intense virtuosity can be a wonderful accent in a song... but for me, it must be tempered with empty space, moments of silence and refrain. Everything in nature reflects this truth, so why shouldn't musical composition and free improvisation?



Absolutely. This is a very deep observation about musical composition and/or live performance, as well as the existential parameters of any human being. No wonder I love his music so much!!! Mr. Monk was one cool cat.

"Stop playing all those wierd [sic] notes, play the melody."

Hey Melodious, those weird notes are a shakuhachi player's bread and butter.

The handwriting must be Steve's then. Monk wouldn't have written that stuff down

Thanks Brian, that is indeed a great "sutra" - and very effusive for Monk. It seems like his advice to Paul Motian was more typical - if you mess with the time I'll chase you off the stand (I'm paraphrasing but that's pretty close...)

-- Karl