Quotes from Jason Moran

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.

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.

You make a record because you have to chart your progress, not only for yourself, but for your audience.

Bjork's album, 'Homogenic,' it's got beats, strings, traditional Icelandic stuff. That's my benchmark for what an album should sound like, right up there with Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' and Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On.'

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

My killer crossover project would be to combine Bjork and Grace Jones with the West Coast rappers and create this massive music. That's, like, one of my dreams.

From being a teacher and educator, I see the state of the music through the eyes of an 18-year-old coming on to the scene, and we want to make sure it stays intact. With my generation, it's our duty to do that.

I kind of want to get the music back on a road it hasn't been on for a while. I want to promote the arts as part of the American diet.

Are we, as humans, gaining any insight on how to talk about ourselves and how something as abstract as a Charlie Parker record gets us into a dialogue about our emotions and our thoughts? Sometimes we lose sight that the music has a wider context. So I want to continue those dialogues. Those are the things I want to foster.

America used to be proud of abstraction, and we have fallen away from it. The future depends on people trying to promote that abstract thinking. Not just in relation to music and jazz and the arts, but the economy, social strife, tension between people.

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

Most pianists listen to about four or five different piano players before they call it quits and say, 'Okay, I've got my thing together.' Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and maybe Chick Corea. Or maybe before that, Oscar Peterson.

I have that huge print from Pollock by the piano because the influence is reciprocal. He was into hearing music while he created, and I sometimes do the opposite. I'm influenced by everything from an ant to a dream.

I'm a prime example of a person who loves hip-hop, and I will defend it till the day I die.

Tons of musicians who I love are imprisoned by their identity. That can be totally fine because they are so amazing in their technique, but for me, I'm a little too restless for that.

While my friends were outside practising to be Tony Hawk or Michael Jordan, I was inside playing Mozart, increasingly disillusioned and bored.

I am a huge fan of Adrian Piper: how she works, how she reveals her process in the work, how she writes about it.

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

Once you step on stage, the people are actually looking to be transformed. That's why they showed up; that's why they spent some money. And great performances do that.

There's mediocre jazz, mediocre salesmen, mediocre golfers. If you want to be good, you have to really hone your skills.

In school, I did a lot of computer work. I'd take splices from Kurt Weill songs and loop them in bars, in beats of seven, trying all different kinds of things.

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.