"Thelonious Monk."
Someone told me this.
Well, I read this poem once, and someone
told me this story about Thelonious Monk.
I read it at a prison.
Some guy came up to me after the reading and said,
you know, you know how Thelonious did it?
I mean, even though Thelonious has-- this really strange way
of playing a solo.
And the guy came up to me and said, you know how he did that?
I said, no, I don't know.
He said, well, I lived in Thelonious's neighborhood
and I grew up with him, you know?
And, yeah, he told me this story about Thelonious used to--
you'd be walking down the street,
and you'd see Thelonious walking down the street.
And you'd see him walk over to a lamppost.
He'd walk over to the lamppost and put his head
to the lamppost.
And he'd come back and try to get the hum-- put
the hum into his piano.
That's how he did it.
That's what he did, man.
And I said, well, OK.
And I love stories about--
I mean, I'm really just open with jazz stories.
People come to me and tell me these outrageous stories
about jazz figures.
And I go, oh, that's fine.
I love the stories, and I don't care whether it's true or not.
I just love the stories.
So, "Thelonious Monk--" I'm a real sucker for stories.
"I know what to do with math.
Listen to this.
It's arithmetic, a soundtrack, the motion
frozen in these lampposts.
It can be sung.
I can lift away its logic, make it
spin like an orbital satellite, find gambling's true pitch.
It can be played.
Adventure, the trying of patience, holding back,
holding up, laying out, stop-time, slow motion,
time travel, spacewalking.
It can be splintered, strained through the fine
mesh of a second.
Now I try a few bars of what's next?
Run it over my hands, ignite it, make the fire sound
like April in Paris."