Barry Harris on the importance of Thelonious Monk

Barry Harris, piano
7/27/16

“I tell some of the young kids in order to be a jazz musician you have to play a Monk song. You don’t play a Monk song, I feel there’s something funny about you being a jazz musician. I had to tell one piano player that, he was in Washington. We had to do this Monk thing…he plays one and he had little bits of Monk in there, you know. It was quite odd… because Monk wrote so many pretty songs. I tell you. What’s this one?…”