Another doctor maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and prescribed drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage.[28]. The image the public has been left with is that of a demanding, eccentric recluse with an inborn gift for piano. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Enter your Thelonious Monk account e-mail address. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born on September 5, 1953 and died of cancer in 1984. [24], Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s for health reasons and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life.
Nothing. Why, I don't know. By the time Monk was thirteen, he had won the weekly amateur competition at the Apollo Theater so many times that the management banned him from re-entering the contest.
Admitted to Stuyvesant, one of the citys best high schools, Monk dropped out at the end of his sophomore year to pursue music and around 1935 took a job as a pianist for a traveling evangelist and faith healer. Legendary performer Nina Simone sang a mix of jazz, blues and folk music in the 1950s and '60s. As a composer, Monk was less interested in writing new melodic lines over popular chord progressions than in creating a whole new architecture for his music, one in which harmony and rhythm melded seamlessly with the melody. He is the subject of award winning documentaries, biographies and scholarly studies, prime time television tributes, and he even had an Institute created in his name, to promote jazz education and to train and encourage new generations of musicians. 
Whereas most pianists of the bebop era played sparse chords in the left hand and emphasized fast, even eighth and sixteenth notes in the right hand, Monk combined an active right hand with an equally active left hand, fusing stride and angular rhythms that utilized the entire keyboard. Billie Holiday was one of the most influential jazz singers of all time. [11] Monk biographer Laurent de Wilde believed that the apocryphal Juilliard story may have stemmed from Monks late 1950s collaboration with Juilliard instructor Hall Overton. Why, they even stole his idea of the beret and bop glasses."[13]. "Crepuscule with Nellie," recorded in 1957, "was Monk's only, what's called through-composed composition, meaning that there is no improvising. [O]f course, I challenge that [in the biography]," Kelley wrote.[19]. From that point on, his career began to soar; his collaborations with Johnny Griffin, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, and arranger Hall Overton, among others, were lauded by critics and studied by conservatory students. Though widespread recognition was still years away, Monk had already earned the regard of his peers as well as several important critics. Monks harmonic innovations proved fundamental to the development of modern jazz in this period. [13] Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at the club. On Brilliant Corners, recorded in late 1956, Monk mainly performed his own music. Monk Blue Note Sessions were recorded between 1947 and 1952. "[33], The complete lack of documented evidence connecting Monk with attending Juilliard was noted by Monk biographer Thomas Fitterling in the first German edition of his Monk biography published in 1987. He often attacked the keyboard anew for each note, rather than striving for any semblance of legato. "So, the boppers worked out a music that was hard to steal. Grammy Award winner Miles Davis was a major force in the jazz world, as both a trumpet player and a bandleader. Michael Cuscuna relates that Alfred Lion told him that there were three people in his life that when he heard them, he just flipped and had to record everything they did. Although this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years, a coterie of musicians led by Randy Weston introduced Monk to Black-owned bars and clubs in Brooklyn that flouted the law, enabling the pianist to play little-advertised, one-night engagements throughout the borough with a modicum of regularity. Most critics and many musicians were initially hostile to Monks sound. Enjoying huge success, they went on to tour the United States and even make some appearances in Europe. Monk was showcased at the club for a week, but not a single person came.[15]. [12] According to biographer Kelley, the 1964 Time appearance came because "Barry Farrell, who wrote the cover story, wanted to write about a jazz musician and almost by default Monk was chosen, because they thought Ray Charles and Miles Davis were too controversial. She was a close friend for the rest of Monk's life: she "served as a surrogate wife right alongside Monk's equally devoted actual wife, Nellie"[18] and "paid Monk's bills, dragged him to an endless array of doctors, put him and his family up in her own home and, when necessary, helped Nellie institutionalize him. With Prestige, he cut several highly significant, but at the time under-recognized, albums, including collaborations with the saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. For example, the poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin described him as "the elephant on the keyboard". 
Monk was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009. Everything I play is different, Monk once explained, different melody, different harmony, different structure. In 1944, Monk cut his first commercial recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. 
They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. [40], Monk often used parts of whole tone scales, played either ascending or descending, and covering several octaves. 
According to Monks wife Nellie, when the prize winner later encountered Monk during a 1958 engagement and told him that Monk should rightfully have been awarded the Juilliard scholarship, Monk replied: "I'm glad I didnt go to the conservatory. After intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note from 1947 to 1952, Monk was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. Alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he explored the fast, jarring, and often improvised styles that would later become synonymous with modern jazz. Monk's mother also taught him to play some hymns, and he would sometimes accompany her singing at church. The first was Monk, the second was Herbie Nichols, and the third was Andrew Hill, where he didnt care how much money he made or lost. In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and his friend Bud Powell. But by the Columbia years his compositional output was limited, and only his final Columbia studio record, Underground, featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only 34 time piece, "Ugly Beauty". Thelonious Monk was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. [13] Monk did not play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, then pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. I mean literally maybe two words. [5], Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time (the others being Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis). [42] Monk had a particular proclivity for the key of B flat. Mintons, legend has it, was where the bebop revolution began. He performed with his own big band at Lincoln Center (1963), and at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the quartet toured Europe in 1961 and Japan in 1963. The years that followed included several overseas tours, but by the early 1970s, Monk was ready to retire from the limelight; save for his 1971 recordings at Black Lion Records and the occasional appearance at the Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, Monk spent his final years living quietly in seclusion. By 1962, Monk was so popular that he was given a contract with Columbia Records, a decidedly more mainstream label than Riverside. In addition to hosting an annual International Jazz Competition since 1987, the institute also helped, through its partnership with UNESCO, designate April 30, 2012, as the first annual International Jazz Day. "[26] Blakey reports that Monk was excellent at both chess and checkers. He studied the trumpet briefly but began exploring the piano at age nine. Two Monk alums, Putter Smith and Larry Gales, substituted for Buell in the rare instance that he was not available. From then on, Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion. Unlike other Southern migrants who headed straight to Harlem, the Monks settled on West 63rd Street in the San Juan Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, near the Hudson River. Monk found work where he could, but he never compromised his musical vision. [39] He also had extended improvisations that featured parallel sixths (he also used these in the themes of some of his compositions). His spares and angular music had a levity and playfulness to it. The North Coast Brewing Company produces Brother Thelonious ale, the proceeds from which go towards jazz music education for young people. The following tribute albums to Monk have been released: On Jeff Beck's 1974 album Blow by Blow, track 2 on side 2 (composed by Stevie Wonder) is named "Thelonious". Monk's relationship with Riverside had soured over disagreements concerning royalty payments and had concluded with two European live albums; he had not recorded an album for Riverside since April 1960. For the next few years, Monk accepted fewer engagements and recorded even less. As his former sideman, tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, explained, Monk was somewhat of a homebody: "If Monk isn't working he isn't on the scene. Each piece is different from the other. Anointed by some critics as the High Priest of Bebop, several of his compositions (52nd Street Theme, Round Midnight, Epistrophy [co-written with Kenny Clarke and originally titled Fly Right and then Iambic Pentameter], I Mean You) were favorites among his contemporaries. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Yet, as much as Monk helped usher in the bebop revolution, he also charted a new course for modern music few were willing to follow. In 1958 Monk and the baroness were stopped by the police in Delaware. Comedian Felonious Munk and music producer Thelonious Martin both adopted stage names based on Monk's name. As a pioneering performer who managed to slip almost invisibly through the jazz community during the first half of his career, Monk is exactly the type of figure who invites rumor and exaggeration. ", John Coltrane was an acclaimed American saxophonist, bandleader and composer, becoming an iconic figure of jazz in the 20th century with albums like 'Giant Steps,' 'My Favorite Things' and 'A Love Supreme.'. . It also did not list his middle name, taken from his maternal grandfather, Sphere Batts. Blue Note, then a small record label, was the first to sign him to a contract. In 1922, the family moved to the Phipps Houses, 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan, New York City; the neighborhood was known as San Juan Hill because of the many African-American veterans of the SpanishAmerican War who lived there (urban renewal displaced the long-time residents of the community, who saw their neighborhood replaced by the Amsterdam Housing Projects and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, though the Phipps Houses remained). 4: Marsalis Plays Monk, Melodious Monk: A New Look at An Old Master, Work: the complete composition of Thelonious Monk, solo guitar, Monk's Dreams: The complete compositions of Thelonious Sphere Monk, "Thelonious Monk's Quiet, Slow Conquest of the World", "Thelonious Monk: Expert insights and analysis of the artist & albums", "Looking At The Life And Times Of Thelonious Monk", "Matthew Quayle: Introduction to the Round Midnight Variations", "Filomena Campus Expect the Unexpected! The album, however, was largely regarded as the first commercial success for Monk. [W]hen the song tells a story, when it gets a certain sound, then its through . His best-known compositions include "Oop Bob Sh' Bam," "Salt Peanuts" and "A Night in Tunisia. "[25] A different side of Monk is revealed in Lewis Porter's biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music; Coltrane states: "Monk is exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]: he talks about music all the time, and he wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you. Physical illness, fatigue, and perhaps sheer creative exhaustion convinced Monk to give up playing altogether. These are generally regarded as the first works characteristic of Monk's unique jazz style, which embraced percussive playing, unusual repetitions and dissonant sounds. "[39] In contrast with this unorthodox approach to playing, he could play runs and arpeggios with great speed and accuracy. His last Blue Note session as a leader in 1952 finds Monk surrounded by an all-star band, including Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Lou Donaldson (alto), Lucky Thompson (tenor), Nelson Boyd (bass), and Max Roach (drums). "I went to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me. Monk didn't record under his own name, however, until 1947, when he played as the leader of a sextet session for Blue Note. Ella Fitzgerald, known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an immensely popular American jazz and song vocalist who interpreted much of the Great American Songbook. The teenage (he would have been 25) Monk entered the contest but placed second and thus failed to get the scholarship. He has since been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, and featured on a United States postage stamp. The latter, which he recorded with Miles Davis in 1954, is sometimes said to be his finest piano solo ever. At the same time, his commitment to originality in all aspects of lifein fashion, in his creative use of language and economy of words, in his biting humor, even in the way he danced away from the pianohas led fans and detractors alike to call him eccentric, mad or even taciturn. Consequently, Monk has become perhaps the most talked about and least understood artists in the history of jazz. It is Monk's concerto, if you will, and in some ways it speaks for itself. [10], For two years, between about the ages 10 to 12, Monk's piano teacher was Austrian-born Simon Wolf, a pianist and violinist who studied under Alfred Megerlin, the first violinist and concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. The after-hours jam sessions at Mintons, along with similar musical gatherings at Monroes Uptown House, Dan Walls Chili Shack, among others, attracted a new generation of musicians brimming with fresh ideas about harmony and rhythmnotably Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Mary Lou Williams, Kenny Clarke, Oscar Pettiford, Max Roach, Tadd Dameron, and Monks close friend and fellow pianist, Bud Powell. [39] [32] In the 1988 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, Samuel E. Wright narrates that "Monk began playing piano without formal training. Mom thing, big-time. You may withdraw your In 1954, Monk participated in a Christmas Eve session, which produced most of the albums Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Davis. Columbia's resources allowed Monk to receive more promotion than earlier in his career. He was about nine when Marions piano teacher took Thelonious on as a student. She proved to be a steadfast presence, as did his own wife Nellie, especially as his life descended into further isolation. An amateur recording from the Five Spot (a later September 1958 reunion with Coltrane sitting in for Johnny Griffin) was issued on Blue Note in 1993; and a recording of the quartet performing at a Carnegie Hall concert on November 29 was recorded in high fidelity by Voice of America engineers, unearthed in the collection of the Library of Congress and released by Blue Note in 2005. In the fall of1953, he celebrated the birth of his daughter Barbara, and the following summer he crossed the Atlantic for the first time to play the Paris Jazz Festival. Monk began studying classical piano when he was eleven but had already shown some aptitude for the instrument. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public school for gifted students, but did not graduate. Buell's other records show a lifelong devotion to the Monk oeuvre. During the 1960s, Monk scored notable successes with albums such as Criss Cross, Monks Dream, Its Monk Time, Straight No Chaser, and Underground. Besides occasional gigs with bands led by Kenny Clarke, Lucky Millinder, Kermit Scott, and Skippy Williams, in 1944 tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was the first to hire Monk for a lengthy engagement and the first to record with him. "[38] Hawkins was one of the earliest established jazz musicians to promote Monk, and the pianist later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on a 1957 session with John Coltrane. And in an era when fast, dense, virtuosic solos were the order of the day, Monk was famous for his use of space and silence. Monk's first known recording was made in 1944, when he worked as a member of Coleman Hawkins's quartet. Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90404 (310) 865-4000. Doctors recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk's illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead. But as Columbia/CBS records pursued a younger, rock-oriented audience, Monk and other jazz musicians ceased to be a priority for the label. One of jazz music's all-time greats, bandleader-pianist Count Basie was a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized mid-20th century popular music. There have been numerous published references since the 1980s in Monk biographies purporting he attended the Juilliard School of Music,[30] an error that continues to be disseminated in online biographies of Monk. Without this, Monk was nominally unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything. By the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records remained poor sellers and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for more mainstream acceptance. After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in the East Village neighborhood of New York beginning in June 1957,[12] leading a quartet with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. He just had to record this music. Monk continued to record studio albums, including Criss Cross, also in 1963, and Underground, in 1968. [] He hit the keys with fingers held flat rather than in a natural curve, and held his free fingers high above the keys. In 1993, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1941, Monk began working at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where he joined the house band and helped develop the school of jazz known as bebop. After battling serious illness for several years, he passed away from a stroke in 1982. "[36], Monk's music has profound humanity, disciplined economy, balanced virility, dramatic nobility, and innocently exuberant wit, Monk once said, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes. Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.[4]. This resulted in the quartet's final recording, Palo Alto (2020). A jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie played with Charlie Parker and developed the music known as "bebop." All of his many blues compositions, including "Blue Monk," "Misterioso," "Blues Five Spot," and "Functional," were composed in B flat; in addition, his signature theme, "Thelonious," largely consists of an incessantly repeated B-flat tone.[43]. One studio session by the quartet was made for Riverside, three tunes which were not released until 1961 by the subsidiary label Jazzland along with outtakes from a larger group recording with Coltrane and Hawkins, those results appearing in 1957 as the album Monk's Music. With the arrival Thelonious Sphere Monk, modern musiclet alone modern culture--simply hasnt been the same. Young Monk turned out to be a musical prodigy in addition to a good student and a fine athlete. In 1947, Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, co-founder of Blue Note Records. I]t was his love song for Nellie," said the author of the "definitive Monk biography",[12] Robin D. G. [57], American jazz pianist and composer (19171982), "Thelonious Sphere Monk" redirects here. 2, Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk, Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk, Standard Time, Vol. Other things named after Monk include punk rock band Thelonious Monster, the 2021 novel Felonious Monk by William Kotzwinkle, and the Cambridge, Massachusetts seafood-and-jazz restaurant Thelonious Monkfish, which later was renamed to The Mad Monkfish.[54]. . In January of 1970, Charlie Rouse left the band, and two years later Columbia quietly dropped Monk from its roster. On some recordings Monk employed veteran Count Basie drummer Rossiere Shadow Wilson; on others, the drum seat was held by well-known bopper Art Blakey. consent at any time. [] Sometimes he hit a single key with more than one finger, and divided single-line melodies between the two hands. . Stories of his behavior on and off the bandstand often overshadowed serious commentary about his music. For much of his career, Monk played with small groups at Milton's Playhouse. The Five Spot residency ended Christmas 1957; Coltrane left to rejoin Davis's group, and the band was effectively disbanded. "I learned how to read before I took lessons," he later recalled. Little of this group's music was documented owing to contractual problems: Coltrane was signed to Prestige at the time, but Monk refused to return to his former label. Bassist McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour, Monk said about two words. When Monk refused to answer questions or cooperate with the policemen, they beat him with a blackjack. Many of his compositions have become jazz standards, including "Well, You Needn't," "Blue Monk" and "Round Midnight." [31] At Monks funeral service in 1982, it was mentioned in his eulogy that he took classes in harmony and arrangement at Juilliard.
The complex title track, which featured Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from multiple takes.