“I’m one of the cats that used to start them playing like lightning. We used to play like lightning all night long up at Minton’s sometimes. I got tired playing fast all the time. You get so you automatically play fast. You can’t play no other way.
If you notice, there’s a lot of musicians like that.
They start playing a certain tempo, and that’s the only tempo they ever play in. Sometimes, maybe, they’ll have about three different tempos that they use. Then, if they vary from one of those, they bring the tempo up to it, or down to it. The tempo changes, because they can’t stay in a tempo they’re not used to playing in.”
– Thelonious Monk, interview with Lee Tomkins, 1965