Minton’s, legend has it, was where the “bebop revolution” began. Returning after two years, he formed his own quartet and played local bars and small clubs until the spring of 1941, when drummer Kenny Clarke hired him as the house pianist at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. By his early teens, he was playing rent parties, sitting in on organ and piano at a local Baptist church, and was reputed to have won several “amateur hour” competitions at the Apollo Theater.Īdmitted to Stuyvesant, one of the city’s 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. He was about nine when Marion’s piano teacher took Thelonious on as a student. He studied the trumpet briefly but began exploring the piano at age nine. Young Monk turned out to be a musical prodigy in addition to a good student and a fine athlete. During his stay, however, he often played the harmonica, ‘Jew’s harp,” and piano-all of which probably influenced his son’s unyielding musical interests. His father, Thelonious, Sr., joined the family three years later, but health considerations forced him to return to North Carolina. 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. At the same time, his commitment to originality in all aspects of life-in fashion, in his creative use of language and economy of words, in his biting humor, even in the way he danced away from the piano-has 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.īorn on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Thelonious was only four when his mother and his two siblings, Marion and Thomas, moved to New York City. Johnson and Willie “the Lion” Smith to the tonal freedom and kinetics of the “avant garde.” And he shares with Edward “Duke” Ellington the distinction of being one of the century’s greatest American composers. His musical vision was both ahead of its time and deeply rooted in tradition, spanning the entire history of the music from the “stride” masters of James P. Recognized as one of the most inventive pianists of any musical genre, Monk achieved a startlingly original sound that even his most devoted followers have been unable to successfully imitate. I was savvy enough to tell it was special, extremely special.With the arrival Thelonious Sphere Monk, modern music-let alone modern culture-simply hasn’t been the same. I could easily hear it, but it was so difficult and different that I was amazed. It is one of his most difficult improvisational vehicles. They were playing my father's composition, "Work." I had never heard it before. It was a recording that featured Art Blakey on drums and the great bassist, Oscar Pettiford, filling out the trio. I can clearly remember lying down with my ear to the speaker and pressing the button for the automatic changer to drop the record. So I decided on a quiet, smaller sounding group - a trio record by my father. I was afraid to play a loud pop record, like my new Sly and the Family Stone album or something from a Motown group, but I wanted something I could turn up so I could hear this new speaker but not blow it up.
Thelonious monk birthday plus#
It was big, 15 inches, plus a huge wooden cabinet. Once it was completed, I needed to test it, but had a dilemma. However, on that hot summer day, I chose to build that one speaker, despite my technical mistake. I went to Lafayette Electronics in downtown Manhattan and purchased parts to build a speaker, though I was not fully familiar with the needs of a stereo system, I purchased parts for only one speaker - a profoundly knuckle-headed move. I wanted a stereo, and decided to build one myself. Then along came the music industry's move from Hi-Fi to stereo. There were no listening restrictions in the Monk household, so I was listening to dad, Duke, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Supremes, and Frank Sinatra - everything, no limits.
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