Thelonious Monk

a biography

"I'm famous. Ain't that a bitch!" - Thelonious Monk.

Thelonious Sphere Monk was born on Red Row, Rocky Mount, North Carolina on October 10, 1917. He did his growing up in New York though, his family moving to West 63rd Street in the San Juan Hill neighborhood in 1923, close to where James P Johnson lived. He started piano lessons when he was around ten years old and played at the Baptist church where his mother was in the choir, and was playing 'rent parties' by his early teens. When he was 17 he dropped out of High School to join an evangelist on a tour which travelled through the Mid-West. It was on this tour that he met Mary Lou Williams in Kansas City. "Thelonious, still in his teens, came into town with either an evangelist or a medicine show - I forget which. While he was in Kaycee he jammed every night, really used to blow on piano, employing a lot more technique than he does today." Monk's technique during this period would have shown more of his initial influences than at later times, though these influences (Teddy Wilson, James P Johnson and Duke Ellington) would always be present in his music.

He returned to New York, and apparently spent some time studying at Juillard before getting a job working for Teddy Hill at Minton's, where he was hired as the pianist in the house band. The years at Minton's were important years in jazz history, legendary years during which a new music emerged. The new music was called 'bebop' - later on just 'bop' - and caused what amounted to ideological warfare in the jazz world. The music from these formative years has been captured for us by a young jazz fan, Jerry Newman, who lugged a 'portable' recorder to many late night jam sessions. These sessions not only included the important new musicians like Monk, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie, but also had a link to the mainstream of jazz with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge. As well as working at Minton's, Monk also paid his dues at Monroe's Uptown House and Kelly's Stables and worked for short periods with Lucky Millinder, Dizzy's Big Band and the Cootie Williams Orchestra. It was Coleman Hawkins though that gave the pianist his studio recording debut. Monk was Hawk's regular pianist when they went into the studio in October 1944 to record four tracks, On the Bean, Recollections, Flyin' Hawk, and Drifting on a Reed.

The Forties though, were not particularly good times for Thelonious, for while he was as important a figure to the new music as Dizzy and Charlie Parker, he did not record to the same extent, and his erratic behaviour did not help him to get the kind of recognition he deserved. Alfred Lion at Blue Note however, recorded Thelonious on several occasions as leader of his own group. These recordings made in 1947 and 1948 featured various musicians - Art Blakey; Shadow Wilson; Milt Jackson and Idrees Sulieman among others. These sessions - together with a later one in 1951 - set the pattern for most of his future recordings - comprising as they did Monk's own compositions with a sprinkling of standards. It was for Blue Note that he first recorded Straight, No Chaser - Ruby, My Dear - 'Round Midnight and other originals that would become such an important part of his career, many of them being played by other musicians to the extent that they would become jazz standards. It was during his time with Blue Note that Thelonious met a young journalist, Orrin Keepnews, who would soon figure prominently in his future.

In 1951 a charge of drug possession led to his losing the all-important cabaret card. Without this card, which he did not regain until 1957, he was not allowed to play anywhere in New York City where alcohol was served. In 1952 Thelonious had left Blue Note and moved to Prestige. Between 1952 and 1954 several trio and quintet sessions were recorded, some with a new young tenor player - Sonny Rollins. These records however did no better than the Blue Note's, as far as any real commercial success, and in 1955 Thelonious changed record companies again - this time to Riverside. Orrin Keepnews reports that the cost of getting Prestige to relinquish Monk's contract was $108.27, the amount that had been over-advanced to the pianist. It was at Riverside that Monk finally came into his own. With Orrin Keepnews as his producer, Monk recorded a series of remarkable albums between 1955 and 1960. The first album was a trio recording - a tribute to Duke Ellington, the second album, also a trio recording was a collection of standards. After these two excellent and successful albums, which were deliberate attempts to make the pianist more 'acceptable' to the jazz public, the recordings reverted to the more normal format of his own compositions with an occasional standard. His third LP for Riverside is often cited as his best recording, "Brilliant Corners" was recorded in 1956 and the quintet included Sonny Rollins and Max Roach, with Ernie Henry on alto and Clark Terry replacing the alto player on one track. Later recordings included John Coltrane, Monk's old employer Coleman Hawkins, Thad Jones, Gerry Mulligan and Clark Terry. It was in the Fifties that Thelonious started to get the attention he had deserved all along. By 1958 for example, he was drawing record crowds to the Five Spot Cafe with his quartet which featured John Coltrane or Johnny Griffin, and he was the top rated pianist in the Down Beat Critic's Poll. The Riverside period came to an end with the release of his 'Thelonious Monk Quartet plus two at the BlackHawk' recorded in April 1960. Riverside later released some quartet concert performances recorded in Europe during his 1961 tour, but these were not produced by Orrin Keepnews and were acquired by Riverside so that Monk could complete his contract with them.

Columbia Records signed Monk in 1962, and with Teo Macero as producer released a series of commercially successful quartet albums starting with "Monk's Dream". Thelonious Monk was becoming a popular jazz musician, something not dreamed of a dozen years earlier. In 1964 he even made the cover of Time Magazine. He performed regularly for most of the sixties - in addition to the usual quartet featuring Charlie Rouse there was a successful orchestral concert in 1963, and he toured with a nine piece group including Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin and Phil Woods. In 1969 he broke with Columbia, his last recording for them was the unsuccessful 'Monk's Blues' with Oliver Nelson.

In 1971 he went on a world tour for George Wein with "The Giants of Jazz", a sextet including Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey. While on this tour he made his last recordings, a wonderful collection of solo piano and trio performances with Art Blakey and Al McKibbon which were recorded for Black Lion in London.

After this tour he virtually stopped performing, his final public appearance was in the summer of 1976. After this final concert he retired from public view, living the rest of his life in seclusion. Thelonious Monk died of a stroke on February 17, 1982.

- Howard Mansfield