Kerouac Alley*

The Beat Generation Multimedia Pages

www.kerouacalley.com
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*Jack Kerouac Alley (formerly Adler Alley or Adler Place) is a one-way alleyway in Chinatown, San Francisco, California that connects Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue, running between "Vesuvio Cafe" (255 Columbus Ave.) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "City Lights Books" (261 Columbus Ave.).

Thelonious Monk
1917-1982

". . . In this modern jazz, they heard something rebel and nameless that spoke for them, and their lives knew a gospel for the first time. It was more than a music; it became an attitude toward life, a way of walking, a language and a costume; and these introverted kids... now felt somewhere at last." -John Clellon Holmes

Thelonious Monk Quotes

“Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears.” -Thelonious Monk

“At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. There’s no beat anymore. You can’t keep time with your foot. I believe that what is happening to jazz with people like Ornette Coleman, for instance, is bad. There’s a new idea that consists in destroying everything and find what’s shocking and unexpected; whereas jazz must first of all tell a story that anyone can understand.” -Thelonious Monk

“I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public want — you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing — even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.” -Thelonious Monk

“Where’s jazz going? I don’t know? Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.” -Thelonious Monk

“I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing — even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.” -Thelonious Monk

“I like to sleep. There is no set time of day for sleep. You sleep when you’re tired, that’s all there is to it.” -Thelonious Monk

“I don’t conside myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can’t develop any further. But I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself. Take a musician like John Coltrane. He is a perfect musician, who can give expression to all the possibilities of his instrument. But he seems to have difficulty expressing original ideas on it. That is why he keeps looking for ideas in exotic places. At least I don’t have that problem, because, like I say, I find my inspiration in myself.” -Thelonious Monk

“Well, I enjoy doing it. That’s all I wanted to do anyway. I guess, you know, if I didn’t make it with the piano, I guess I would have been the biggest bum.” -Thelonious Monk “I don’t know where jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.” -Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk Multimedia Directory

Thelonious Monk Blue Monk	Thelonious Monk In Berlin 1973
Thelonious Monk Lulu's Back in Town Part 1	Thelonious Monk Round About Midnight
Thelonious Monk Epistrophy	Thelonious Monk at Town Hall - Part 1

Thelonious Monk Internet Directory

Diane di Prima Poem For Thelonious Monk	Thelonious Monk: The Web Site	Thelonious Monk: At "Art & Culture	Thelonious Monk A Site From Brazil
Thelonious Monk References & Resources	Thelonious Monk Artists of Jazz	Thelonious Monk At the BBC.	Thelonious Monk At Artist Direct
Thelonious Monk "The Lonliest Monk".	"For Monk" List of Compositions Written for or Inspired by Thelonious Monk	Thelonious Monk: At PBS	Thelonious Monk At PRMS
Thelonious Monk At Rolling Stone	Round About Monk The European Thelonious Monk Web Site.	Thelonious Monk: University of Illinois	Thelonious Monk A Review (Austin Chronicle).
Thelonious Monk The Lincoln Center Institute.	Thelonious Monk The Official Site.	Thelonious Monk At Ink Blot Magazine.	Thelonious Monk @ Jazz Files
Thelonious Monk: And Bud Powell	Thelonious Monk The Discographies	Thelonious Monk Song Book.	Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz
Thelonius Monk @ Duke University	Thelonious Monk Song Book.		Thelonious Monk At Harlem.Org
	Thelonious Monk French Language Site.	Thelonious Monk A Brief Profile.	Thelonious Monk @ Village Jazz Recordings.
Thelonious Monk Record Reviews.	Thelonious Monk A Brief Biography.	Thelonious Monk At "Jazz Image".	Thelonious Monk A Brief Profile.
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