Talk:Thelonious Monk

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Much more is badly needed here!

Contents

[edit] Spatial relationships

What is meant by this? I think some clarification is needed. 80.221.213.232 20:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's meaningless. I guess whoever wrote it was referring to the wide intervals in the melodies & improvisations? I have revised the sentence. --ND 07:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Riverside buyout

possibly a minor note, but to say that buying thelonious's prestige contract out for a 'miserly' sum seems to imply that riverside was cheating him, which is unfair to a label that gave him new opportunities, new work and a recording environment responsive to and respectful of his personal genius. $108 was the asking price set by prestige.

I think it was myself who incorporated "miserly" in to the article. "Mere" seems better; even allowed for the last half-centuries inflation and Riverside's relatively marginal status at the time, the figure still seems low. Philip Cross 19:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monk and Bop

What else is "bop" besides an abbreviation for bebop? In the given context, I'm sure that's what it is. -- Merphant

I'm currently reading The making of Jazz, James Lincoln Collier, who uses "bop". I think the friend whose copy it is mentioned bop and bebop are not the same, but I'll need to check. -- Tarquin 10:48 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

FWIW both of the external links mention Monk as a key player in bebop, so the article tells the truth as it is, although bop probably has some other meanings too: for some reason I don't think The Big Bopper was referring to bebop in his name :) -- Merphant
Jazz is far from my forte, but my understanding is that bop encompasses hard bop, bebop and maybe some other genres... Not sure what exactly the difference is between those, though. Tuf-Kat 05:31, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

It seems a bit awkward that the documentary about his life is introduced in the paragraph after it's referenced. (I'm not sure how best to improve it, though.)

Hey I believe that bop is short for Bebop and nothing else because that is just what I have heard

Bop and Bebop and synonymous. Both were used (initially by the press, later by the musicians themselves) to refer to the jazz style popularized by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, et al. in the early 1940's. The term was derived from syllables typically used in scat singing (vocalizations with asensical syllabels instead of words). -- Matt 10/8/05

Monk said in the Time feature: "I was calling it bipbop, but the others must have heard me wrong."

[edit] Census info

Good information, but we probably don't need to have his childhood street addresses and the number of lodgers in the article. I've incorporated some of the information into the rest of the article, and left all of it in comments. --ajn (talk) 20:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. --Viriditas 22:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Learning and technique

There is not much about how Monk learned to play and not much about his playing technique. As far as I know, despite of being perhaps the most legendary jazz pianist, Monk's technique and improvisation was self taught and his technique is not very uhm... technical... I think he did not study much jazz but learned improvising just by improvising. Somebody who knows better should write about these matters. --128.214.69.47 15:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, Monk never took lessons, per se, but his sister Marion did, and he 'sat in', so to speak, watching over her shoulder. When the lessons were over he would sit at the piano and practice whatever she had been taught that day. No doubt the two of them talked about it, as well.

Two other things to note: I'm pretty sure Monk's family moved to NY (San Juan Hill neighborhood) in 1920, not 1930. And, I believe in addition to a sister he also had a brother, named Thomas.12.221.85.24 03:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)Gabriel

From what I have read and also from watching "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", its my understanding that Monk began taking piano lessons at the age of 11 and actually spent a little bit of time studying piano at Juilliard. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Monk's family moved to New York in either 1923 or 1925. I seem to remember that he was about 5 years old when moving to the city, and with his D.O.B. being in 1917, that would be around 1923.

[edit] Composition/soloing technique

Lots of biography, but not much here that would give a reader not already familiar with the music much info as to why Monk was important, or interesting, either as a composer or as a player.

I'd note his tendency, somewhat counter to the rest of early bebop, to strip out lots of the "ornamentation" in his playing, to favor tempos ("tempi"?) well slower than the usual bebop tempos, and to abstract extremely from "standard" changes when working from a standard tune. Examples of Monk compositions based on standards which come to mind are

"Evidence" = "Just You, Just Me" (the explanatory pun, is supposeedly "Just You, Just Me" = "Just Us" = "Justice")

and

"Ask Me Now" = "Diamonds are A Girl's Best Friend". Silverlake Bodhisattva 15:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

To me, what characterizes Monk's improvisations are:

  • a deliberately rough-edged playing technique, compared with the relative smoothness of typical bebop dynamics and technique
  • unusual melodic phrasing, often with long silences, lots of repetition, and heavy emphases on dissonant chords
  • use of dissonances like bare minor seconds and minor ninths that are unusual even for bebop. (Of course, minor seconds and ninths show up in jazz voicings all the time, but strongly emphasizing them by themselves with no other supporting tones is unusual.)
  • long whole-tone runs (an instantly recognizable signature--pretty much no one else does this unless they're quoting Monk)

--Rictus 07:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genius of Modern Music LPs

The article asserts that this was his first LP but to my knowledge it's a later compilation of singles--surely jazz LPs only really got going later on? The original liner notes for that matter imply previous release. ND 06:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

NDorward, the two 10"LPs under this title surfaced in 1951 and 1952 respectively and the 12" versions in 1956. (Source: Goldmine...Jazz Albums 1949-69, 1994) Philip Cross 19:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, & the individual singles date originally from the late 1940s I believe? ND 20:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
There's no information about release dates, but you can see the catalogue numbers of the original formats (78rpm shellac "singles") and work out the tracklistings here (recording sessions 1947-1951) [1]. Richard Cook's Blue Note Records says that Blue Note hadn't released any of Monk's recordings until after the third session. --ajn (talk) 21:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] early history

The details on his early life seem sketchy, the official site http://www.monkzone.com/ claims he began learning the piano at age 9 and Marion´s piano teacher had taken him on as a student. Any references saying otherwise?

[edit] Narcotics

There are a couple of references in the article to narcotics being found during searches. Marijuana was legally classified as a 'narcotic' at the time and hence the police reports no doubt refer to narcotics; but that word is more commonly used today to refer to 'harder' drugs. Could this be clarified? What was it the police found - weed, pills, or something stronger?

The Leslie Gourse bio (which is a P.O.S. by & large but I think can be relied on for this detail) says that it was heroin found in the car with Monk & Bud Powell. ND 23:02, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It’s surprising, and very sad, that a huge proportion of bebop (or bop – I prefer "bebop" as the term for the initial movement begun by Parker, Gillespie, Monk, Powell, et. al. What followed was hard bop (Blakey, Silver, Morgan et. al.) musicians became addicted to heroin. One of the few exceptions was Dizzy Gillespie who was determined to stay married and whose wife told him in no uncertain terms that she’d leave if he took up the drug. The hard bop cats were just as badly affected: Coltrane, Davis, Blakey, Navarro, etc. And all the musicians on 1959’s Kind of Blue were junkies, except for Cannonball Adderley.

  • That's pretty misleading. I'm pretty sure they were all clean at that time. Coltrane never went back to drugs after well before that time.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.188.169 (talk • contribs) 11:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the poster necessarily was saying that they were all hooked at the time, just that they were at some point in their career junkies, which is I think true (though I don't know anything about Cannonball or Cobb). In any case, you're wrong: in fact in the Pettinger bio p. 61 he states that Evans had already tried drugs before joining Miles & refers to the "drug-grounded fellowship of that band" (this is the slightly earlier version with Philly Joe Jones). --ND (talk) 23:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] fair use

As per Wikipedia:Fair use, Image:BrilliantCornersTheloniousMonk.jpg should not be used in this article. (It's OK to use in the Brilliant Corners article, because that article is specifically about the album in question.) The inclusion of Image:Timethelonious.jpg is questionable, see counterexamples -- the magazne cover is mentioned but I'm not sure it's a "topic" here. I thought I would mention this here first, though the guidelines seem clear regarding the album cover. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I've replaced the album cover image with commons:Image:Thelonious Monk 1967.jpg, which only requires attribution (I've credited the source in the image's caption). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Birth name

I noticed at the beginning of the article (in the box/sidebar) Monk's middle name is mentioned as "Sphere" at birth. I didn't think he was born with that name, but he changed it to contrast with the slang "square," meaning conformist, unhip, etc. Just checking on this. M. Stern 22:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I believe you are wrong on this. Creative names like 'Sphere' were relatively popular among African Americans around 1900.--Pharos 06:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems that there is confusion on this. According to http://www.svirchev.com/cdreviews/MonkAlone-LiveItClub.html, "yes indeed, that was his given name at birth." And according to http://jazz.about.com/od/theloniousmonk/p/theloniousmonk.htm, "In his mid-teens he changed his middle name to his maternal grandfather's name, Sphere." I believe that the name change was partly for the reason I wrote about before. If anyone could find a more authoritative source with information on Monk's name, that might be helpful.M. Stern 20:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's the answer: it was his name from birth, but he didn't find out about it till he was a teenager. Then, he used Sphere as a sort of a joke about how he wasn't a "square", but that wasn't the origin of the name. See here (which references a 1997 biography).--Pharos 07:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Which makes it strange, then, that I can't find "Sphere" anywhere on his birth certificate (but maybe I'm missing something?).--Pharos 15:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
In fact, the BC says his birth name was "Thelonious Junior Monk". -- JackofOz (talk) 01:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Timethelonious.jpg

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[edit] Discography

I have tried to sort original issues from (posthumous) compilations so that the discography does not confuse users coming to Monk for the first time or unfamiliar with other sources. I have made an exception for the 1971 Black Lion recordings which, as they are somewhat obscure in their original form, necessitates the 1988 reference being a legitimate inconsistency.

A problem still remains because the "Original Jazz Classics" of the Prestige material are actually reissues of the first 12"LP issues, though this is not always acknowledged when these recordings are discussed, but too much minutiae would be pedantic. Philip Cross 14:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have added the original reissue years for the familiar 12"LP versions of the Prestige releases, taken from the 1994 Goldmine Price Guide to Collectible Jazz Albums 1949-69. Since the original 10"LPs are rare, the titles are not all exactly the same and some of the sessions are split, it seems unnecessary to give those details. Philip Cross 15:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

Trivia section removed below. Please add notable and appropriately sourced material into sections. —Viriditas | Talk 08:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

  • The unusual name of Thelonious is given in many translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses as an alternate spelling for Philonius, Mercury's son. Today, most scholars agree that the spelling should have been Thelonious. [citation needed]
  • The 1920 US Federal Census lists Thelonious and his father (a laborer) as "Theloins".
  • Asteroid (11091) Thelonious has been named in honor of Thelonious Monk.
  • Lupe Fiasco has mentioned Thelonious Monk in many of his songs, both homaging Pharrell in some, and Thelonious himself.
  • The coffee-shop that is frequented in the show Seinfeld is called Monk's after Thelonious Monk. Apparently there was a Thelonious Monk poster hanging in the room Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld would write the script.
  • Monk at Riverside: "Misterioso" about the Life, Music and the final seven years of Silence of Thelonious Monk, will be at Riverside Studios in London on November 2007 featuring jazz stars playing Monk's unique music.
"I'm not going to tell you any names senator McCarthy
Go into any library or any jazz club, there you'll find your enemies
Am I afraid of you, senator McCarthy?
We are not all heroes, sometimes we are afraid
But you are much more afraid, senator, or should I call you president?
With your preaching tone and your well rehearsed smiles
And the rivers of blood that flow at your feet, under your desk.
You can't sleep at night as you walk through your house with your gun loaded.
While we, senator, stay awake at night to listen to the golden fire of a saxophone
Senator, sergeant, patriot, spy, executioner, president!
Listen to the story of a black piano player, grieved and gentle
Listen to the sound of his last silence"
  • In The Simpsons episode "Trilogy of Error", Lisa encounters a boy at another school named Thelonious who seemingly matches her intelligence and loneliness:
  • Thelonious: My name's Thelonious.
  • Lisa: As in "Monk?"
  • Thelonious: Yes. The esoteric appeal is worth the beatings.
  • North Coast Brewery brews a beer named Brother Thelonious, a Belgian style abbey ale, in honor of Thelonious Monk. North Coast Brewery is associated with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz and donates $2 to the institute from every case of Brother Thelonious sold.
  • Steely Dan gives a nod to Thelonious in their 1972 song "Midnight Cruiser," the first verse of which begins "Felonious my old friend, Step on in and let me shake your hand, So glad you're here again, For one more time, Let your madness run with mine."
  • There is an important Jazz Bar in La Paz, Bolivia, called Thelonious in honor to Thelonious Monk. The Bolivian Internacional Jazz Festival has (partially) place there.
  • The song "Jazz Thing" by Gang Starr features the line "Thelonious Monk, a melodious thunk."
  • In the song "A" by Barenaked Ladies, they say "A M & Azing, like Thelonius Monk"

[edit] Asperger Syndrome?

Should something be put in the article about how Monk may have had Asperger syndrome? I don't have a source on this, but I know that many people believe he may have been afflicted with this syndrome. For example the quote by McKibbon about his antisocial behavior ("On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning', 'Goodnight', 'What time?' Nothing...") suggests this. I don't know, if somebody finds a source for this could you post it here? 67.170.105.233 (talk) 05:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

AS was not a condition recognised in the English speaking world during Monk's lifetime. Medical diagnosis of such conditions without clinical consultation is not considered good professional practice. Philip Cross (talk) 20:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mental Illness?

If the police beat him over the head with a blackjack, then this could have caused brain damage and his subsequence mental illness. Does anyone know if he showed symptoms before this incident or only after? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.197.138 (talk) 11:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you're mistaking Thelonious Monk with Bud Powell... Never heard of Monk being beaten by the police over the head with a blackjack. Where did you get that from? --LuisJ (talk) 20:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Miles and Monk at Minton's?

If at all possible, I'd like to see some substantiation of the claim at the end of the Early Life section that "the Minton's scene" brought Monk in contact with Miles Davis - who didn't actually arrive in New York until 1944. If not, I propose that Miles Davis' name be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin.fish (talk • contribs) 02:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Looking into it... Viriditas (talk) 03:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I just looked at four different sources and they all confirm it. I think you are getting hung up on the dates for some reason. After Davis arrived in 1944, he frequented Minton's and was playing there in 1945. Davis says he met Monk "shortly after I first came to New York around 1945." According to Davis, "Charlie Parker would take me down to listen to Monk all the time and make me sit in with him." This "place" was apparently Minton's, where Monk was the house pianist. The text says "early-to-mid 1940s", so I don't see the problem. According to the sources, Monk lived around the corner from the club. Also, the text concerning the "formulation of the bebop genre" is supported by the dates; classic bebop era was 1945-1949. Viriditas (talk) 04:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for checking that out. What I did was add the word "later" before Miles' name, just because I think he stands out in that short list as the only one not there in the early 1940s, which is credited by most as when bebop really began to take shape. The article on Minton's Playhouse was helpful. Martin.fish (talk) 17:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed unsourced

Monk's music is arguably the most recorded of any jazz composer.

Let's add this back in with sources, please. Viriditas (talk) 12:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's probably unverifiable because "jazz composer" is not an objective term. But it's true that "Round Midnight" alone has countless readings which would push up the credits substantially above just about any other comparable musician (probably with things like Garner's "Misty" also comparable). Why does the statement need to go in, anyway? Seems pointless to me. --ND (talk) 00:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
As the "High Priest of Bop", one could argue that it is a notable observation of Monk's stature, overall influence, and lasting legacy. My understanding is that Duke Ellington is the most recorded jazz composer, not Monk, which is why I removed it. Viriditas (talk) 00:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, though again probably there's still some ambiguity here (Ellington did write pop tunes with lyrics; Monk's tunes are instrumental, though the popularity of "Round Midnight" probably owes a lot to its being given lyrics early on). So then it's probably just flat wrong, so don't bother reinstating it. --ND (talk) 01:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)