The music of Thelonious Sphere Monk is better than it sounds. That's the consensus, from liner notes of his early albums to on-line forums today.
Around Monk, there's an aura of reverence and mystery. To get inside that aura this past year, I read a Monk bio by Robin DG Kelley, ordered CDs, and played Monk's music regularly.
[Photo: The cover of Time makes Monk look intimidating; the text is worshipful. But in 1964, his Time's up. Rock is about to make jazz irrelevant.]
Robin DG Kelley subtitles his biography of Monk The Life and Times of an American Original, a title that raises the question, original what? Some wit in Wikipedia's article writes that Monk sounds like he's wearing work gloves when he plays the piano. Musical giant Leonard Bernstein, quoted by Kelley, says Monk's "a genius, of course," but a "crude" pianist.
On the other hand -- literally -- no less an authority than Duke Ellington, from the stage of the Rainbow Grill, announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the baddest left hand in the history of jazz just walked into the room, Mr. Thelonious Monk" (Kelley 430). Monk was gratified, but what about the right hand? The audience was left to wonder.
Monk in performance seems to slap at keys, with much collateral damage. (See him play "Epistrophy" with Charlie Rouse in 1963 on Youtube). For lovely recordings by Miles Davis on "'round Midnight" and Carmen McRae's wonderful tribute album, the bands filter out some of the rough edges that we hear in Monk's own playing.
But Monk could play right notes fast, had he chosen to do so. Kelley starts his biography with the story how Monk, on a dare, sight-reads a Rachmaninoff score at breakneck speed. Thus Kelley refutes both the accusations of Monk's detractors and the racial stereotypes of white admirers, to the effect that Monk was either uneducated and undisciplined or else instinctual and child-like.
That Monk could match the more popular flowing virtuosic style, but wouldn't, suggests that his interest in the music was in some other kind of beauty. Monk himself seems to have embraced that idea. His 1956 tune "Brilliant Corners" may be his way of reading the phrase "rough edges," and his title for a 1967 tune could be his motto, "Ugly Beauty."
Ellington's praise may sound like a left - handed compliment, but I think it's key. While Monk struggled for recognition through the rise of be - bop jazz, his promoters claimed that he was on the cutting edge of the movement, a visionary, ahead of his time. Not so his left hand technique, which was deeply rooted in gospel music -- he toured with an evangelist early in his career -- and in the "stride" piano of his mentors. Stride requires the left hand to leap octaves from the piano's lowest bass notes to the middle of the keyboard. That's a leap of faith unless you're an expert. The gradual movement up or down in the bass note gives the piece its structure; over that strong foundation, the right hand can indulge in whimsical dissonances for color and punctuation.
About those dissonances, Kelley writes,
Monk's chords were a product of years of training, experimentation, and a solid understanding of music theory. Monk knew it, which is why he became so annoyed when critics, musicians, even his admirers, described his chords as "wrong" or "weird."
Monk's pride and joy seems to be how he makes so much from so little. He repeats phrases to create larger patterns. That's close to the meaning of the word "epistrophy," the title he chose for an early hit that he never tired of recording. Most of Monk's song "Well, You Needn't" (a.k.a. "It's Over Now") consists of one rapid motif ("ya'NEEDn't") run up and down the scale.
His popular ballad "'round Midnight" fits the AABA profile of most American standards, but it, too, shows Monk's love of a strong bass and controlled melody. Over a slow stepwise fall of bass notes, the tune slithers around in tiny half-steps, then jumps wide intervals, suggesting sighs and outcries. Making the most of his material, Monk builds the song's B-section from a variation of the last phrase of the A-section.
I wonder if Monk resisted prettying up his compositions because he wanted the audience to see the craftsmanship -- the foundation, joints, and beams -- not a facade?
In the same way that he focused each song on just a small amount of material, Monk focused his career on a small repertoire. Monk mostly performed selections from his own narrow catalogue of around 70 tunes, played mostly at a slow speed.
He wanted spontaneity from his players, but he also commanded them to "stick to the melody." Many times, Kelley tells us how a player joining Monk on stage would feel it was a "trial by fire," even Monk's own son Toot. Monk wouldn't say what the next song would be, and wouldn't provide a written score.
Monk the man comes across as shy, but fierce in defending his music. He drove himself to ill health on club dates, tours, and concert hall performances to support wife Nellie, son Toot and daughter Boo Boo. When he suffered with what we now call bipolar disorder, his family supported him. For Monk, "family" extended to include fellow musicians Charlie Rouse, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, and his patron the Baroness Pannonica.
The arc of Kelley's narrative is Monk's gradual building of an appreciative fan base until, just as he came into his own in the early 1960s, the folk-rock-pop industry sidelined jazz. Monk, who had been far out and avant-garde, was considered old-fashioned by 1970.
I end my year of Monk feeling comfortable with his music. It isn't pretty, it isn't smooth, but it's colorful, well-crafted, clever, whimsical, always distinctly Monk. I turn up the radio when I recognize a piece of his, and I smile.
