Thelonious Monk: Any Thoughts?

[GammaGlobulin]

My Dearest Friends,

 

Do you ever find yourself seemingly stuck between two cultures, and then suddenly loving the momentary realization of your juxtaposition?

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

Thelonious Monk.

 

Your thoughts, please.

 

Regards,

Gamma

 

Note: Shortest Topic, Yet.  Enjoy!

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

Just riffing... 

 

Sometimes, riffing and introspection is healthy. 

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

12 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Just riffing... 

 

Sometimes, riffing and introspection is healthy. 

 

 

Yes. 

I agree. 

This Monk is amazing. 

 

[bluebluewater]

I love his stuff and have for a very long time.  

[GammaGlobulin]

4 minutes ago, bluebluewater said:

I love his stuff and have for a very long time.  

Yes, incredible. 

 

One thought I have frequently thought, is just how difficult it sometimes is to listen to serious music, such as this, in some parts of Thailand. 

 

For me, at this location, the only possible time to listen to Monk is between the hours of 1:00 AM and 6:00 AM. 

 

At all other times of the day, low-level overflying aircraft, roosters, electronically-amplified temple chanting, pounding bass from local music festivals, whining husky dogs, screaming muffler-less motorcycles, make serious music impossible to appreciate. 

 

There is an amazing amount of great jazz one might listen to, if only one could find a place to listen. 

 

Still, quite fortunately, I live where there is still enough quiet between the hours of 3:30 AM and 5:30 AM. 

 

At 6:00 AM, the barking of dogs, beating of gongs, revving of motorbikes, crowing of infernal roosters, and buzzing of jet aircraft begins. 

 

3AM to 5AM is the best time to listen to Felonious Monk, and any other serious music....

 

IF, anyone really wants to listen, which I think is probably rather doubtful, these days. 

 

Some say that the world is losing its dark sky, and that we can no longer see the beauty of the the stars, even our own galaxy. 

 

And, even worse, it's getting harder to listen to Thelonious Monk. 

 

Those that never had, which is most of the world, cannot feel the loss of what they had never known. 

 

God save the child who's never known... Who's never known... 

 

 

 

 

[d4dang]

the guy is a god

[TheAppletons]

"Who is the loneliest monk?"

 

  - MTV VJ Tabitha Soren, 1992

[GammaGlobulin]

24 minutes ago, TheAppletons said:

"Who is the loneliest monk?"

 

  - MTV VJ Tabitha Soren, 1992

Who is the loneliest monk, she ever knew? 

 

Theloneliest! 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[GammaGlobulin]

Did Thelonious ever perform in Paris? 

 

Paris is a place where people have some respect for people like Thelonious. 

 

If so.... Where to find the recordings of Paris performances? 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[GammaGlobulin]

Was this in Paris?

 

 

Lulu!!!

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[nikmar]

Monk had a very hard hitting angular style that fitted in perfectly with Charlie Rkusse swirling tenor sax

[GammaGlobulin]

45 minutes ago, nikmar said:

Monk had a very hard hitting angular style that fitted in perfectly with Charlie Rkusse swirling tenor sax

What?

You want angular?

I give you angular....

From a little man with a very big sound.

 

 

So amazing!

So angular, too!

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[save the frogs]

very strange album cover.

haven't listened to him in years.

all i remember is his music being very eccentric. 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

6 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

very strange album cover.

haven't listened to him in years.

all i remember is his music being very eccentric. 

 

Strange, but good. 

Please notice, in the album cover, just who is tied up. 

 

And who is free to play, improvisationally, the piano. 

 

Free, at last. 

Free, at last. 

 

Thank God Almighty, 

We are free at last. 

 

 

[bamnutsak]

Huge Monk fan here.

 

Struggling to name my favorite composition... "Straight, No Chaser"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWNhvGhhCWY

 

or "Round Midnight"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC68NtEmAcc

 

There are quite a few live performances on Youtube where you can get a feel for his style.

 

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT9VeJBcEBM

 

He is in the famous photograph: A Great Day in Harlem. He's easy to spot! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Great_Day_in_Harlem_(photograph)

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

31 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

What?

You want angular?

I give you angular....

From a little man with a very big sound.

 

 

So amazing!

So angular, too!

 

Dig the diminished chords, Man! 

 

Dig the dissonance! 

 

Michel is amazing. 

Such a great gift in such a small body. 

 

Somebody give him a telephone book so he can reach the keys! 

 

Very Dark. 

 

I first found one of his CDs 25 years ago in Taipei. 

 

Best CD I ever bought. 

 

Nobody can touch him. 

 

I just wish Steinway had provided him a cut-down piano suitable for his height. 

 

Genius. 

 

A true Monk! 

 

 

[jerrymahoney]

Thoughts? Yes.

 

He was my neighbor.

 

http://wikimapia.org/26759636/Thelonious-Monk-Apartment

 

I lived on West 57th St. and, on the 16th floor I could often hear scattered notes from the Metropolitan Opera  at Lincoln Center.

[GammaGlobulin]

21 minutes ago, jerrymahoney said:

Thoughts? Yes.

 

He was my neighbor.

 

http://wikimapia.org/26759636/Thelonious-Monk-Apartment

 

I lived on West 57th St. and, on the 16th floor I could often hear scattered notes from the Metropolitan Opera  at Lincoln Center.

"He was my neighbor" 

 

Your comment is the best I have read, or probably shall ever read, on ThaiVisa. 

 

During recent years, I had begun to think that I was alone in this wilderness, bereft of culture. 

 

Your comment is a cup of spring water to a man dying of thirst in this barren wasteland, called Asia. 

 

40 years ago, I visited Asia, and the performing arts were nowhere to be seen. Western musical instruments, such as violins and pianos, were beaten into kindling to fire furnaces to make inferior fly-ridden steel for the Party.

 

Nobody here knows nothing about what it's like to live in the Tri-State area with Jazz and Rodin statues all about one. 

 

I sacrificed my intellectual pursuits, as well as my interests in fine art and serious music, to come here. 

 

Gone are the days of my youth when amazing jazz was playing on my car radio. 

 

Back in the day, I would turn on the radio and fall asleep to the sounds of Miles Davis, such a tough guy. 

 

Most guys found it hard to fall asleep at night to the trumpet of Miles Davis, but his horn, for me, was like counting sheep. 

 

In my opinion, any farang who is able to peacefully fall asleep listening to Miles Davis must be a true jazz farang. 

 

 

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

Further, I would submit to you that Thelonious Monk and Michel Petrucciani are both cut from the same cloth:

 

Monk is Brown and Tall.

Michel is Less-brown and Short.

 

Both are geniuses.

But, Michel is more of a genius than Thelonious.

 

You only need to listen to the two of them, side by side.

 

They BOTH sound similar, but Michel is more equal than Thelonious, 

Just as some people are more "equal" than others, a la Orwell.

 

Please don't take my word for it, and you should spend significant time listening to both before you make up your minds.

 

Here is Michel:

 

 

And, here is Thelonious' "LULU's Back in Town":

 

 

These two guys are almost one in the same, like Schwarzenegger and Devito!

 

 

Note:  Personally, in my opinion, I like both equally.  I love both.

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

 

Miles Davis.

 

Tough Guy.

 

[LaosLover]

I'm so old (and weird) that I saw him live. At the legendary 5 Spot club, circa '70. I was a high schooler from the 'burbs looking for pot to buy on Saint Marks Place and the door man announced free admission.

 

It was a matinee show. It was him solo and it all of it was very much over my head. It was my first exposure to jazz of any kind, if you back out Louis Armstrong singing Hello Dolly. I knew it was something I was "supposed" to like and I stoically stayed for the full 40 minute set. It was a bit of hard work. It stuck with me, but it took Kinda Blue to crack the code for me.

 

Least fave Monk idea was the live album with him and Coltrane. No meshing, just slightly jarring alternating solo's. Just too much genius colliding to make for listenable music.

 

Kinda Blue is sort of like Hank Williams: if you don't like it, just skip the entire adjacent genre too. Monk's very thick bio is prob my fave jazz book after Really The Blues.

Edited January 4, 2023 by LaosLover

[jerrymahoney]

Not jazz or Monk but this was from the same neighborhood:

 

(previously Posted December 9, 2022)

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon late 1970's when the West Drive to Central Park was closed to motor traffic. I was walking south when I spotted a couple to my left with their young son sitting on a bench off the road all by themselves. I said Hello! to the man without breaking stride and he gave me a big Hello! back.

 

John Lennon with Yoko Ono and their son Sean. Still remember that moment near what is now Strawberry Fields Central Park.

 

https://www.centralparknyc.org/locations/strawberry-fields

 

I also once got to attend a dress rehearsal which the Opera Guild members could attend. I was walking by Lincoln Center and some older lady asked me if I wanted to go. Sure.

 

Then after a while I heard a VOICE. Not an opera buff but I knew this was something special:

 

Luciano Pavarotti rehearsing for his debut at the Met.
 

Edited January 4, 2023 by jerrymahoney

[LaosLover]

John used to frequent the bookstore across from Carnegie Hall (Bookmaster's). He'd call ahead and come an hour before opening so as not to be bothered. I told him to buy Another Roadside Attraction. He came back and pronounced it "a right cracker".  

 

In retrospect, that book was pretty terrible -like bargain basement Richard Braugtigan -who begged countless women to let him tie them up to no avail.

 

But he still prob had a better sex life than John did with Yoko (going by the vicious Albert Goldman bio).

[jerrymahoney]

3 minutes ago, LaosLover said:

But he still prob had a better sex life than John did with Yoko (going by the vicious Albert Goldman bio).

But maybe not May Pang

[LaosLover]

Yoko picked Mae Pang to be his girlfriend. She outsourced him -pretty cold.

[LaosLover]

Relatedly, I used to work at a medical answering service in that era and spoke briefly with the great jazzer, Art Blakey.

 

I told him what a great record Night In Tunisia was. Said Mr Blakey:

 

"Man, just have my doctor call me back, I can't pee".

[jerrymahoney]

14 minutes ago, LaosLover said:

Relatedly, I used to work at a medical answering service in that era and spoke briefly with the great jazzer, Art Blakey.

 

I told him what a great record Night In Tunisia was. Said Mr Blakey:

 

"Man, just have my doctor call me back, I can't pee".

I saw Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at a Jazz festival in Steamboat Springs CO when he had a young Wynton and Branford Marsalis on stage.

 

Ray Charles was the headliner.

[LaosLover]

That's up there with when I saw Prince open for Madonna. In a club (The Ritz, on 18th Street). 70's-80's was an astonishing time to go out to music in New York. 

 

I'm a huge fan of Afro-beat legend Fela Kuti. In New York, I got to see him and his 30 piece band 3 times -and he didn't play outside of Africa all that many times. I saw the Wailers with Bunny and Peter still in the band too. For $3. With Burning Spear supporting. 

 

No one on earth didn't play Manhattan. Back in the days of record company hegemony, the labels would pay for a marginal act to have a showcase show in the city. The Bottom Line was a famous venue for that.

 

I am sad that New York is no longer the musical epicenter of the earth. A few years ago, we had to trek out to Long Island to Alice In Chains. NYC was just to expensive a venue for them to play a show in. Willie Nelson was only playing in Jersey in the same week.

 

If Willie Nelson can't make any money there, you can forget Wynton Marsalis, unless it's at a heavily subsidized place like Lincoln Center.

Edited January 4, 2023 by LaosLover

[jerrymahoney]

In Colorado I also saw Sonny Rollins. But hard jazz aside, the person who has had the most influence on me playing any jazz is Pat Metheny. Saw him multiple times all over from early 80's to late 90's. (14 seconds)

 

[LaosLover]

I saw Sonny Rollins legendarily playing solo for free on the Brooklyn Bridge.  Proper silent reverence required, or he'd stop playing.

 

Saw Pat Methany a couple times too, but it was another Thelonius situation: my ears were not yet attuned to grasp what was going on. I had to comprehend John Mclaughlin first before I could hear it.