Two years later, after further lobbying at Headquarters, Monk returned to the scene. Since then his luck has changed. Three years have passed without a whisper of trouble. Abroad, at least, he is approached as if he were a visiting professor (Interview on an Amsterdam radio station last week: "Who has had the greatest influence on your playing, Mr Monk?" "Well, me of course.") Most pleasing of all to Monk is a new quartet led by Soprano Saxophonist Steve Lacy that is dedicated solely to the propogation of Monk's music. In the past Monk has been the only voice of his music, he even has trouble finding sidemen.

His present accompanists - Rouse on tenor, Butch Warren 24, on bass, and Ben Riley, 30, on drums - have a good feeling for his music. Rouse is a hard-sound player who knows that his instrument suggests a human cry more than a bird song, and he plays as if he is speaking the truth. Warren's rich, loping bass is well suited to Monk's rhythms if not his harmonic ideals, he is like a pony in pasture who traces his mother's footsteps without stealing her grace. Riley has just joined the band, but he could be the man Monk is looking for. A great drummer, as the nonpareil Baby Dodds once observed "ought to make the other fellas feel like playing." Riley does exactly that, with a subtle, very musical use of the drums that forsakes thunder for thoughtfulness.

Monk's sidemen traditionally hang back, smiling and relaxed, and apart from an occasional Rouse solo, they seem content to let Monk lead. "That's right, Monk." they seem to be saying, "you tell 'em, baby." But Monk demands that musicians be themselves. "A man's a genius just for looking like himself," he will say "Play yourself!" With such injunctions in the air, the quartet's performances are uneven. Some nights all four play as though their very lives are at stake; some nights, wanting inspiration, all four sink without a bubble. But it is part of Monk's mystique never to fire anyone. He just waits, hoping to teach, trusting that a man who cannot learn will eventually sense the master's indifference and discreetly abandon ship.

Now that Monk is being heard regularly, he seems more alone that ever. Jazz has unhappily splintered into hostile camps, musically and racially. Lyrical and polished players are accused of "playing white," which means to pursue beauty before truth. The spirit and sound of each variety of jazz is carefully analyzed, isolated and pronounced a "bag." Players in the soul bag, the African bag and the freedom bag are all after various hard, aggressive and free sounds, and there are also those engaged in "action blowing," a kind of shrieking imitation of action painting.

Within each bag, imitation of the "daddy" spreads through the ranks like summer fires. Trumpeters try to play like Miles Davis. And hold their horns like Miles. And dress like Miles. Bassists imitate Charlie Mingus or Scott LeFaro: drummers, Max Roach or Elvin Jones. Sax players copy Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane, who is presently so much the vogue that the sound of his whole quartet is being echoed by half the jazz groups in the country.

Bud Powell, Red Garland, Bill Evans and Horace Silver all have had stronger influences than Monk's on jazz pianists. Monk's sound is so obviously his own that to imitate it would be as risky and embarrassing as affecting a Chinese accent to order chop suey. Besides, Monk is off in a bag all his own, and in the sleek, dry art that jazz threatens to become, that is the best thing about him.

© TIME magazine - 1964