42 Quotes by Jason Moran

If you hear Thelonious Monk play a run that goes from the top of the piano, OK, he has opened up the Grand Canyon with that. He's the river that's carved this entire space that we call the Grand Canyon. He does that with one run. He lets you know, like, what the possibility of the sound of the piano can do.

I see how people look at me, all around the world. They see something because of the race I belong to. I have to understand that and put it into my music.

Pianos - if they don't like what you're saying, then they won't talk back to you. And you want it to talk back to you.

I want to express what's meaningful. I'm not into gimmicks. I want to make truthful music that's invigorating, maintains a cutting edge, takes on different shades.

I don't want to be defined solely by what I do as a jazz musician at a club or a festival. That's not all of me. It's not even close.

Monk's music is often defined as enigmatic, eccentric and humorous - as if it had little to do with the pain he may have endured to create his art. But I believe Monk routinely shared his history with his audience, no matter how unpalatable that history was, and it is for that very reason that his music connects with people around the globe.

As an improviser, my nature is to take a theme and constantly rework it.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but I kind of mangle things as I perform in a contemporary way.

I feel like I'm a torchbearer for jazz, fostering its tradition but its future, too.