A History of Jazz Music A history of Jazz Music TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi . All rights reserved. All photographs are property of the label/agency that provided them (These are excerpts from my book "A History of Jazz Music" ) Bebop pianists TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Just like the saxophone revolution had obscured the double-bass revolution during the swing era, the bebop revolution in playing saxophone and trumpet obscured the revolution in playing the piano. However, it was probably the piano that benefited the most from bebop's harmonic freedom. Once the rhythm section had been opened up, the piano regained the prominence that it had in classical music. Thelonious Monk was not only the most cerebral pianist to enter the history of jazz music but also the greatest composer of the bebop era. Epistrophy (1942) and the immortal Round about Midnight (1944) were composed for the orchestra of Cootie Williams, I Mean You (1946) for Coleman Hawkins' band.

52nd Street Theme (june 1945) became a classic of bebop when it was recorded by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. At the same time that his compositions were leaving a mark on the transition from swing to bebop, his piano style (in Coleman Hawkins' band that he had joined in 1944) was confusing the audience. It was a style that sounded outside the jazz tradition, not only eccentric but also laconic, almost counterproductive in the way it emphasized the pauses instead of the rhythm, and clustered chords instead of linear development.

His recordings of his own compositions established a higher musical standard than jazz music was used to: Humph (october 1947), based on George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm, and Thelonious (october 1947), that exhibits an almost classical geometry while employing both silence and dissonance, for a piano sextet (Idrees Sulieman on trumpet, Danny Quebec West on alto sax, Billy Smith on tenor sax, Gene Ramey on bass, Art Blakey on drums); Well You Needn't (october 1947), Off Minor (october 1947) and the tender ballad Ruby My Dear (october 1947) for a trio (with Art Blakey on drums); the ballad Monk's Mood (november 1947) for a trumpet-sax-piano quintet; Evidence (july 1948) and the bluesy Misterioso (july 1948) for a piano-based quartet with Milt Jackson on vibraphone. Monk's art was a calibrated balance of deconstruction and estrangement techniques.

On one hand, one could still hear elements of stride jazz, boogie-woogie, blues, even nursery rhymes, although they were diluted in an anarchic patchwork of overtones. On the other hand, the listener was disoriented by the fragile, naked ambiguity of the music. That ambiguity would disappear if one could only appreciate the hidden orchestral quality of Monk's piano playing. A piano-based quintet with Jackson on vibraphone, Sahib Shihab on alto sax, Blakey on drums, yielded the romantic ballad Ask Me Now (july 1951), the blues Straight No Chaser (july 1951), Four in One (july 1951) and Criss Cross (july 1951). A quintet with French horn player Julius Watkins, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, Percy Heath on bass, was immortalized on the album Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins (november 1953) with Friday the 13th (1953) and Think of One (1953), based on an ostinato trick similar to Thelonious.

Hackensack (may 1954) and Locomotive (may 1954), with a 20-bar chorus, were due to a quintet of trumpet, tenor sax, piano, drums and bass. In the piano-trio format favored by his friend Bud Powell, Monk sculpted Bemsha Swing (december 1952), the Caribbean-sounding Monk's Dream (october 1952), Nutty (september 1954), Blue Monk (september 1954) and the dissonant Work (september 1954). Max Roach drummed on the first one, Blakey on all the others. In the meantime, jazz music had entered the age of the album. his first solo album, Thelonious Monk (1954) offered solo-piano versions of his early classics, including Eronel (1951) and Reflections (1953).

After two albums of covers, Monk was allowed to make the album that he was capable of, Brilliant Corners (october 1956), a set of complex chamber pieces for tenor saxophone (Sonny Rollins), alto saxophone (Ernie Henry), bass (Oscar Pettiford), drums (Max Roach) and piano, notably Brilliant Corners and Pannonica, in which Monk played both piano and celeste. This was to remain his masterpiece. Jazz Connection (may 1957) with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers revisited several of his classics. Thelonious Himself (april 1957) was mostly solo interpretations. Another historical collaboration, with the young John Coltrane, documented on Live at the Five Spot (may 1957), only released in 1993, and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (july 1957), only released in 1991, that paired two completely opposite souls (the reclusive philosopher and the cosmic virtuoso), yielded a spectacular version of Monk's Trinkle Tinkle and his moving ballad Crepuscule With Nellie.

After Mulligan Meets Monk (august 1957) with white saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and other minor collaborations, Monk joined in a quartet with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin that recorded Thelonious in Action (july 1958) and especially Misterioso (august 1958). The repertory was now fossilized: Monk kept repeating his themes of the golden years. TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Earl "Bud" Powell was the pianist who adapted the bebop style of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to the piano. He boldly disposed of the left hand striding and of Art Tatum's baroque embellishments to coin an anti-virtuoso style that relied more on melodic invention and on subtle irregularities, and nonetheless releasing an almost demonic energy.

His style crystallized through a number of piano trio performances at the turn of the decade: Bud's Bubble (january 1947), based on Parker's Crazeology, So Sorry Please (february 1950), Celia (february 1949), Strictly Confidential (february 1949) and especially Tempus Fugit (february 1949) with Max Roach on drums and Ray Brown on bass; Un Poco Loco (may 1951) with Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums, one of his artistic peak; and Glass Enclosure (august 1953). Hallucinations (february 1951) and The Fruit (february 1951) were performed solo. He also composed Bouncing with Bud (august 1949) and especially Dance of the Infidels (august 1949), recorded with Theodore "Fats" Navarro on trumpet, Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Tommy Potter on bass and Roy Haynes on drums. These compositions rank among the most refined tunes of the time.

His playing was apparently schizophrenic, but in reality Powell was "drumming" with his left hand while unleashing phrases at breakneck speed with the right hand. An alcoholic who had spent several periods of his life in mental hospitals, his major season lasted only those few years. TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Chicago's blind pianist Lennie Tristano , of Italian-American descent, who arrived in New York in 1946, fused bebop and 20th-century classical music in his abstract meditations that wove extended melodies over subdued rhythms, the musical equivalent of a renaissance painting with a complex building in the foreground and a simple, pastoral landscape in the background. He was not a poet but an architect: his pieces relied on several levels of counterpoint and even dissonance. They were frigid and lifeless by the standards of jazz music.

Tristano coined that language in 1947, via a series of uncompromising recordings both solo (Atonement, Spontaneous Combustion) and in a drum-less trio with a guitarist (Billy Bauer) and a bassist (Dissonance, Parallel, Apellation, Abstraction, Palimpsest, Freedom). Two years later a quintet with Tristano, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, guitarist Billy Bauer and drummer Shelly Manne laid the foundations for a group version of that art with Konitz's Subconscious-Lee and Tristano's Retrospection , off Lennie Tristano Quintet featuring Lee Konitz (january 1949), as well as Konitz's Tautology on Lee Konitz with Tristano, Marsh and Bauer (january 1949). Free jazz was invented in 1949 (ten years before the term was coined) when Tristano's sextet (alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, guitarist Billy Bauer, bass and drums) recorded Intuition and Digression, two completely improvised free-form jams.

They were but two of the tracks of Crosscurrents (1949), that also included Wow and Sax of a Kind. That album's austere and elegant improvised counterpoint was as pioneering for cool jazz as Miles Davis' Birth Of The Cool. The dissonant Descent into the Maelstrom (june 1953), for overdubbed pianos, was an even more formidable attack against musical conventions. Two pieces recorded in october 1951 by a piano-bass-drums trio, Ju-Ju and Pastime, were actually assembled in the studio by Tristano, manipulating and overdubbing sections of music.

After a three-year hiatus, the bluesy and fully improvised Requiem, Line Up, for another piano-drums-bass trio and accelerated in the studio, and Turkish Mambo, that overdubbed three tracks in different meters to create a rhythmic effect that a pianist could not achieve, all three off Lennie Tristano (1955), the nine improvisations of Manhattan Studio (1956) for piano trio (with Manhattan Studio and Momentum), Continuity (october 1958), with Warne Marsh, bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Paul Motian, off Continuity, and The New Tristano (1960), a set of breathtaking improvised piano solos (notably Becoming, the spectacular C Minor Complex, the suite Scene and Variations, Deliberation, G Minor Complex) continued to refine his language, which was now widely understood. The dynamic of his compositions was often cyclic, alternating quiet passages and stormy passages, hinting at an endless cycle of rebirths. TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.

A sort of reaction to bebop came from pianists whose music was far less cerebral and much closer to pop music. Montreal's pianist Oscar Peterson was a virtuoso (worthy of Art Tatum) in the age of bebop, the antithesis of virtuosity. He mastered the techniques of stride piano, boogie-woogie and pop balladry, and rarely challenged his audience. By 1950 he was widely considered the greatest jazz pianist. 1951 (march 1951) was a collaboration with trumpeter Austin Roberts. Pastel Moods (january 1952) was his first trio album, a typical set of atmospheric themes for piano, guitar and bass. The trio he formed in 1953 with guitarist Herb Ellis and bassist Ray Brown refined that idea via Recital (april 1954), At Zardi's (november 1955) while Peterson also engaged in countless tedious tribute albums, collaborations with Lionel Hampton, Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge, etc.

The subsequent trio of 1958 with only bass (Brown) and drums (Ed Thigpen) started out with Affinity (september 1962) and Night Train (december 1962), with Hymn To Freedom, and perhaps peaked on Trio Plus One (august 1964) with trumpeter Clark Terry. They also recorded Peterson's first major composition: the eight-song Canadiana Suite (september 1964). Then the classic trio lost its drummer, and the line-up began to fluctuate, although albums such as Blues Etude (december 1965) were not much different from the previous ones.

After many years of vegetating next to other dinosaurs, a rebirth of sort led Peterson to a handful of inspired recordings: The Trio (may 1973) with Joe Pass on guitar and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen on bass, five elegant pieces that summarize his style (Blues Etude, Chicago Blues, Easy Listening Blues, Come Sunday, Secret Love); Night Child (1979) with Pass, Pedersen and a drummer; Nigerian Marketplace (1981) with Pedersen on bass and Terry Clark on drums; If You Could See Me Now (1983), again with Pedersen, Pass and a drummer; as well as to (finally) composing a few orchestral suites: African Suite (1979), A Royal Wedding Suite (april 1981) for piano and orchestra; Easter Suite (1984), Trail of Dreams (april 2000). TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. British blind pianist George Shearing represented pop-jazz at its most melodious.

His quintet (piano, guitar, bass, drums and Margorie Hyams' vibraphone) scored huge hits with Harry Warren's September In The Rain february 1949) and his own Lullaby Of Birdland (july 1952). His best album was probably Spell (april 1955). He was the epitome of the "light" chamber sound. New York's pianist Erroll Garner was another master of melody, penning Laura (september 1945), Fantasy on Frankie and Johnny (june 1947), the pop hit Misty (july 1954) and a Concert by the Sea (september 1955). While still rooted in swing music and gentle to the point of sounding superficial, Garner's flowing style represented a meeting of the jazz tradition and the impressionistic tradition of classical music, evoking Claude Debussy more than the jazz pioneers. A follower of Garner's "impressionistic" school, Chicago's pianist Frederick "Ahmad Jamal" Jones (1930) was a master of ambience and dynamics.

A sense of existential suspense scars the catchy melodies of Ahmad's Blues (may 1952), and, after the fashionable conversion to Islam (1952), New Rhumba (may 1955), and the two hits from the live album But Not for Me (january 1958), Nat Simon's Poinciana (october 1955) and George Gershwin's But Not for Me. The only pianist-composer to stand up to Thelonious Monk during the bebop era was Herbie Nichols , but in his case the composition prevailed over the performance. Nichols pioneered cross-over fusion between jazz music (both the traditional kind and the bop kind) and classical music (the traditional, tonal kind). In fact, he also added doses of Caribbean folk music.

He only recorded four albums as a leader, between 1955 and 1957, notably The Third World (may 1955), with Art Blakey on drums, containing Third World, Dance Line, Cro-Magnon Nights, Amoeba's Dance and 2300 Skidoo, and two volumes of Herbie Nichols Trio (august 1955 and april 1956), with Max Roach on drums, containing The Gig, House Party Starting and Lady Sings the Blues (Billie Holiday's theme song). Their unorthodox, whimsical pieces could sound like parodies of the ruling canons or like deconstruction of the pop song. Hardly a trivial pop-jazz evangelist, California's white pianist Dave Brubeck managed the feat of reconnecting the masses with jazz music. His compositions, such as The Duke (august 1955) and In Your Own Sweet Way (february 1956), were steeped in jazz tradition but often make him sound like a predecessor of the "third stream". His piano playing, best displayed on Solo (april 1956), could be angular and subversive.

The classic Quartet (Brubeck, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, drummer Joe Morello, black bassist Eugene Wright) crafted Time Out (august 1959), the first million-selling jazz record, but both the hits, Desmond's Take Five (in 5/4 time) and Blue Rondo a la Turk (in 9/8), indulged in odd time signatures. Brubeck proved his musical ambitions by scoring the ballet Points on Jazz (composed in 1960), the oratorio The Light In The Wilderness (march 1968), the cantatas The Gates of Justice (october 1969), Truth is Fallen (august 1971) and La Fiesta de la Posada (1976), and the mass To Hope (june 1995). TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Other noteworthy pianists of the bebop era were Al Haig, Elmo Hope and Richard Twardzik. In Europe, the main bebop pianist was probably the French-based pianist Martial Solal .

Thelonious Monk | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Biography All Music Guide All Music Guide: The most important jazz musicians are the ones who are successful in creating their own original world of music with its own rules, logic, and surprises. Thelonious Monk, who was criticized by observers who failed to listen to his music on its own terms, suffered through a decade of neglect before he was suddenly acclaimed as a genius; his music had not changed one bit in the interim. In fact, one of the more remarkable aspects of Monk's music was that it was fully formed by 1947 and he saw no need to alter his playing or compositional style in the slightest during the next 25 years. Thelonious Monk grew up in New York, started playing piano when he was around five, and had his first job touring as an accompanist to an evangelist. He was inspired by the Harlem stride pianists (James P. Johnson was a neighbor) and vestiges of that idiom can be heard in his later unaccompanied solos.

However, when he was playing in the house band of Minton's Playhouse during 1940-1943, Monk was searching for his own individual style. Private recordings from the period find him sometimes resembling Teddy Wilson but starting to use more advanced rhythms and harmonies. He worked with Lucky Millinder a bit in 1942 and was with the Cootie Williams Orchestra briefly in 1944 (Williams recorded Monk's "Epistrophy" in 1942 and in 1944 was the first to record "'Round Midnight"), but it was when he became Coleman Hawkins' regular pianist that Monk was initially noticed. He cut a few titles with Hawkins (his recording debut) and, although some of Hawkins' fans complained about the eccentric pianist, the veteran tenor could sense the pianist's greatness. The 1945-1954 period was very difficult for Thelonious Monk. Because he left a lot of space in his rhythmic solos and had an unusual technique, many people thought that he was an inferior pianist.

His compositions were so advanced that the lazier bebop players (although not Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker) assumed that he was crazy. And Thelonious Monk's name, appearance (he liked funny hats), and personality (an occasionally uncommunicative introvert) helped to brand him as some kind of nut. Fortunately, Alfred Lion of Blue Note believed in him and recorded Monk extensively during 1947-1948 and 1951-1952. He also recorded for Prestige during 1952-1954, had a solo set for Vogue in 1954 during a visit to Paris, and appeared on a Verve date with Bird and Diz. But work was very sporadic during this era and Monk had to struggle to make ends meet. His fortunes slowly began to improve. In 1955, he signed with Riverside and producer Orrin Keepnews persuaded him to record an album of Duke Ellington tunes and one of standards so his music would appear to be more accessible to the average jazz fan. In 1956 came the classic Brilliant Corners album, but it was the following year when the situation permanently changed.

Monk was booked into the Five Spot for a long engagement and he used a quartet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. Finally, the critics and then the jazz public recognized Thelonious Monk's greatness during this important gig. The fact that he was unique was a disadvantage a few years earlier when all modern jazz pianists were expected to sound like Bud Powell (who was ironically a close friend), but by 1957 the jazz public was looking for a new approach. Suddenly, Monk was a celebrity and his status would not change for the remainder of his career. In 1958, his quartet featured the tenor of Johnny Griffin (who was even more compatible than Coltrane), in 1959 he appeared with an orchestra at Town Hall (with arrangements by Hall Overton), in 1962 he signed with Columbia and two years later was on the cover of Time. A second orchestra concert in 1963 was even better than the first and Monk toured constantly throughout the 1960s with his quartet which featured the reliable tenor of Charlie Rouse.

He played with the Giants of Jazz during 1971-1972, but then in 1973 suddenly retired. Monk was suffering from mental illness and, other than a few special appearances during the mid-'70s, he lived the rest of his life in seclusion. After his death it seemed as if everyone was doing Thelonious Monk tributes. There were so many versions of "'Round Midnight" that it was practically a pop hit! But despite the posthumous acclaim and attempts by pianists ranging from Marcus Roberts to Tommy Flanagan to recreate his style, there was no replacement for the original.

Some of Thelonious Monk's songs became standards early on, most notably "'Round Midnight," "Straight No Chaser," "52nd Street Theme," and "Blue Monk." Many of his other compositions have by now been figured out by other jazz musicians and are occasionally performed including "Ruby My Dear," "Well You Needn't," "Off Minor," "In Walked Bud," "Misterioso," "Epistrophy," "I Mean You," "Four in One," "Criss Cross," "Ask Me Now," "Little Rootie Tootie," "Monk's Dream," "Bemsha Swing," "Think of One," "Friday the 13th," "Hackensack," "Nutty," "Brilliant Corners," "Crepuscule With Nellie" (written for his strong and supportive wife), "Evidence," and "Rhythm-a-Ning," Virtually all of Monk's recordings (for Blue Note, Prestige, Vogue, Riverside, Columbia, and Black Lion) have been reissued and among his sidemen through the years were Idrees Sulieman, Art Blakey, Milt Jackson, Lou Donaldson, Lucky Thompson, Max Roach, Julius Watkins, Sonny

 Rollins, Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Wilbur Ware, Shadow Wilson, Johnny Griffin, Donald Byrd, Phil Woods, Thad Jones, and Charlie Rouse.

His son Thelonious Monk, Jr. (T.S. Monk) has helped keep the hard bop tradition alive with his quintet and has headed the Thelonious Monk Institute, whose yearly competitions succeed in publicizing talented young players. Thelonious Monk Biography, Thelonious Monk Music, Thelonious Monk News, Thelonious Monk Photos and more - KeepVid Music Artist NEWS The most important jazz musicians are the ones who are successful in creating their own original world of music with its own rules, logic, and surprises. Thelonious Monk, who was criticized by observers who failed to listen to his music on its own terms, suffered through a decade of neglect before he was suddenly acclaimed as a genius; his music had not changed one bit in the interim. In fact, one of the more remarkable aspects of Monk's music was that it was fully formed by 1947 and he saw no need to alter his playing or compositional style in the slightest during the next 25 years. Thelonious Monk grew up in New York, started playing piano when he was around five, and had his first job touring as an accompanist to an evangelist. He was inspired by the Harlem stride pianists (James P.

Johnson was a neighbor) and vestiges of that idiom can be heard in his later unaccompanied solos. However, when he was playing in the house band of Minton's Playhouse during 1940-1943, Monk was searching for his own individual style. Private recordings from the period find him sometimes resembling Teddy Wilson but starting to use more advanced rhythms and harmonies. He worked with Lucky Millinder a bit in 1942 and was with the Cootie Williams Orchestra briefly in 1944 (Williams recorded Monk's "Epistrophy" in 1942 and in 1944 was the first to record "'Round Midnight"), but it was when he became Coleman Hawkins' regular pianist that Monk was initially noticed. He cut a few titles with Hawkins (his recording debut) and, although some of Hawkins' fans complained about the eccentric pianist, the veteran tenor could sense the pianist's greatness. The 1945-1954 period was very difficult for Thelonious Monk. Because he left a lot of space in his rhythmic solos and had an unusual technique, many people thought that he was an inferior pianist.

His compositions were so advanced that the lazier bebop players (although not Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker) assumed that he was crazy. And Thelonious Monk's name, appearance (he liked funny hats), and personality (an occasionally uncommunicative introvert) helped to brand him as some kind of nut. Fortunately, Alfred Lion of Blue Note believed in him and recorded Monk extensively during 1947-1948 and 1951-1952. He also recorded for Prestige during 1952-1954, had a solo set for Vogue in 1954 during a visit to Paris, and appeared on a Verve date with Bird and Diz. But work was very sporadic during this era and Monk had to struggle to make ends meet. His fortunes slowly began to improve. In 1955, he signed with Riverside and producer Orrin Keepnews persuaded him to record an album of Duke Ellington tunes and one of standards so his music would appear to be more accessible to the average jazz fan. In 1956 came the classic Brilliant Corners album, but it was the following year when the situation permanently changed.

Monk was booked into the Five Spot for a long engagement and he used a quartet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. Finally, the critics and then the jazz public recognized Thelonious Monk's greatness during this important gig. The fact that he was unique was a disadvantage a few years earlier when all modern jazz pianists were expected to sound like Bud Powell (who was ironically a close friend), but by 1957 the jazz public was looking for a new approach. Suddenly, Monk was a celebrity and his status would not change for the remainder of his career. In 1958, his quartet featured the tenor of Johnny Griffin (who was even more compatible than Coltrane), in 1959 he appeared with an orchestra at Town Hall (with arrangements by Hall Overton), in 1962 he signed with Columbia and two years later was on the cover of Time. A second orchestra concert in 1963 was even better than the first and Monk toured constantly throughout the 1960s with his quartet which featured the reliable tenor of Charlie Rouse.

He played with the Giants of Jazz during 1971-1972, but then in 1973 suddenly retired. Monk was suffering from mental illness and, other than a few special appearances during the mid-'70s, he lived the rest of his life in seclusion. After his death it seemed as if everyone was doing Thelonious Monk tributes. There were so many versions of "'Round Midnight" that it was practically a pop hit! But despite the posthumous acclaim and attempts by pianists ranging from Marcus Roberts to Tommy Flanagan to recreate his style, there was no replacement for the original.

Some of Thelonious Monk's songs became standards early on, most notably "'Round Midnight," "Straight No Chaser," "52nd Street Theme," and "Blue Monk." Many of his other compositions have by now been figured out by other jazz musicians and are occasionally performed including "Ruby My Dear," "Well You Needn't," "Off Minor," "In Walked Bud," "Misterioso," "Epistrophy," "I Mean You," "Four in One," "Criss Cross," "Ask Me Now," "Little Rootie Tootie," "Monk's Dream," "Bemsha Swing," "Think of One," "Friday the 13th," "Hackensack," "Nutty," "Brilliant Corners," "Crepuscule With Nellie" (written for his strong and supportive wife), "Evidence," and "Rhythm-a-Ning," Virtually all of Monk's recordings (for Blue Note, Prestige, Vogue, Riverside, Columbia, and Black Lion) have been reissued and among his sidemen through the years were Idrees Sulieman, Art Blakey, Milt Jackson, Lou Donaldson, Lucky Thompson, Max Roach, Julius Watkins, Sonny

 Rollins, Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Wilbur Ware, Shadow Wilson, Johnny Griffin, Donald Byrd, Phil Woods, Thad Jones, and Charlie Rouse.

His son Thelonious Monk, Jr. (T.S. Monk) has helped keep the hard bop tradition alive with his quintet and has headed the Thelonious Monk Institute, whose yearly competitions succeed in publicizing talented young players. Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk 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". Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.nHis compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.nHe was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses.

He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.nMonk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time, after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis. Thelonious Monk Wallpaper, Art Print, Poster, Photography Drag the image off onto your desktop Go to your control panel and choose 'Appearance' Click 'Set Desktop' and choose the newly downloaded image on your desktop Thelonious Monk Wallpaper, Art Print, Poster, Photography, Desktop Wallpaper, Pictures, Photos, Images, Backgrounds, Wall paper Thelonious Monk (1917-1982), American jazz pianist and composer, who during the 1940s, with the saxophonist Charlie Parker and the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, was one of the creators of the bebop style in jazz. He was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

Because of his unorthodox, “homemade” piano technique and what was perceived as the inscrutability of his compositions, his following was small until the mid-1950s, when the depth and complexity of his music began to be recognized. Thereafter Monk established himself among the leading composers of jazz, writing most often for small groups and concentrating increasingly on formal innovations. Many of Monk's works have become jazz classics, including 'Round Midnight; Criss Cross; Epistrophy; Well, You Needn't; and Blue Monk. Jazz Wallpapers Thelonious Monk | Download eBook PDF/EPUB Author by : Rob van der Bliek Languange : en Publisher by : Oxford University Press Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 34 Total Download : 608 File Size : 55,6 Mb Description : Of all the major jazz artists, Thelonious Monk was one of the most original musical thinkers--nonconformist, idiosyncratic, imaginative, eccentric--in a word, unique.

In The Thelonious Monk Reader, Rob van der Bliek has brought together some of the most revealing pieces ever written on Monk, providing a full portrait of the musician and his impact on the jazz world. Here is a wealth of information that was previously scattered and difficult to locate, including a wide range of articles, profiles, reviews, interviews, liner notes, and music analyses. Ranging in date from 1947 to 1999, these 39 pieces feature the work of some of our best jazz critics, including Leonard Feather, Ira Gitler, Nat Hentoff, Andre Hodeir, Gunther Schuller, Martin Williams, and many others. The book spans Monk's childhood and early recordings with Blue Note and Prestige, his Riverside period and the critical recognition that followed the release of Brilliant Corners, and his fame and fortune during his Columbia years. Readers will find colorful descriptions of Monk's eccentric lifestyle as well as thoughtful commentary on his unorthodox piano technique, which was marked by off-center accents and idiosyncratic voicings, broken rhythms, alternately dense and stripped down chords, and creative use of silence.

Rob van der Bliek also provides a general introduction and brief introductions to each piece as well as critical annotations that place the work in context. Controversial, often contradictory, and always engaging, these readings offer a complete view of the man, his music, and his time. The only such book on Monk's life and work, this volume will be "must reading" for jazz fans and scholars, musicians, music lovers, and readers with an interest in African-American culture. Publisher by : Univ of California Press Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 77 Total Download : 949 File Size : 41,6 Mb Description : "Gabriel Solis's study of Thelonious Monk's legacy energizes an important development in jazz studies. Respectful of Monk and his musical heirs, Solis nevertheless offers insights on Monk myth-building by opposing jazz camps in which both moldy figs and avant-gardists claim him as their own. Moving beyond exploding these turf battles, Solis comes to deep realizations about jazz as a practice. This will become an often-cited work, even a transformative one."—Steven F.

Pond, author of Head Hunters: The Making of Jazz's First Platinum Album (winner of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music's Woody Guthrie Prize) Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 36 Total Download : 104 File Size : 55,9 Mb Description : In Jazz Heroes, leading jazz critic John Fordham examines the lives and work of six such artists. Their legacy embraces the flinty, dissonant elegance of pianist Thelonius Monk; the breezy lyricism and dazzling technique of guitarist Wes Montgomery; and the warmth, vocal dexterity, and captivating optimism of singer Ella Fitzgerald. Saxophonist John Coltrane's restless quest for an all-but-unplayable dream is documented, as is trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's deft combination of showbiz and radical musicianship, and the story of how baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan made Cool Jazz a hot ticket in the pop charts of the early 1950s. With evocative archival photographs and a discography of the musicians' most important works.

Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 79 Total Download : 610 File Size : 40,6 Mb Description : Beautiful, romantic and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England. As a child, Nica took her daily walks, dressed in white, with her two sisters and governess around the parkland of the vast house at Tring, Hertfordshire, among kangaroos, giant tortoises, emus and zebras, all part of the exotic menagerie collected by her uncle Walter. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children.

When World War II broke out, Nica and her five children narrowly escaped back to England, but soon after, she set out to find her husband who was fighting with the Free French Army in Africa, where she helped the war effort by being a decoder, a driver and organizing supplies and equipment. In the early 1950s Nica heard “’Round Midnight” by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: she bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs, and her convertible Bentley could always be seen parked outside downtown clubs or up in Harlem. Charlie Parker would notoriously die in her apartment in the Stanhope Hotel. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982. Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women.

Part musical odyssey, part love story, The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York’s jazz scene. Publisher by : Hal Leonard Corporation Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 72 Total Download : 248 File Size : 52,6 Mb Description : (Jazz Play Along). For use with all Bb, Eb and C instruments, the Jazz Play-Along Series is the ultimate learning tool for all jazz musicians. With musician-friendly lead sheets, melody cues and audio, this first-of-its-kind package makes learning to play jazz easier than ever before. For study, each tune includes audio with: * Melody cue with proper style and inflection * Professional rhythm tracks * Choruses for soloing * Removable bass part * Removable piano part. For performance, each tune also has: * An additional full stereo accompaniment track (no melody) * Additional choruses for soloing.

10 songs: Bemsha Swing * Blue Monk * Bright Mississippi * Bye-Ya * Let's Call This * Pannonica * Rhythm-a-ning * 'Round Midnight * Shuffle Boil * Ugly Beauty. Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 86 Total Download : 952 File Size : 50,5 Mb Description : Percival Everett's Erasure is a blistering satire about race and writing Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies—his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer's, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father's suicide seven years before. In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins's bestseller.

He doesn't intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is—under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh—and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel. Publisher by : Books LLC, Wiki Series Format Available : PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read : 49 Total Download : 441 File Size : 52,8 Mb Description : Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 72.

Chapters: Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Riverside Records, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Byrd, George Russell, Art Blakey, Chet Baker, Yusef Lateef, Alberta Hunter, Buck Clayton, Mark Murphy, Billy Taylor, Toots Thielemans, Milt Jackson, Nat Adderley, Randy Weston, Johnny Griffin, Wynton Kelly, George Lewis, Barry Harris, Zoot Sims, Kenny Dorham, Abbey Lincoln, Little Brother Montgomery, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Pepper Adams, Victor Feldman, Philly Joe Jones, Julian Priester, Johnny Lytle, Don Elliott, Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Ida Cox, Junior Mance, Gigi Gryce, Sweet Emma Barrett, Bobby Timmons, Clifford Jordan, Billy Faier, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Kenny Drew, Elmer Snowden, Walter Norris, Dave Pike, Mongo Santamar a, Red Mitchell, Mundell Lowe, Percy Humphrey, Eddie Jefferson, Don Friedman, Tony Parenti, Joe Albany, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, Wild Bill Davis, Joe Sullivan, Sal Nistico, Wilbur Ware, Marty Grosz, Jim Robinson, Teri Thornton, John Benson Brooks, Ralph Sutton

, Kid Thomas Valentine, Matthew Gee, Freddie Redd, James Clay, Dick Johnson, Montgomery Brothers, Rod Levitt, Trigger Alpert, Junie Cobb, Franz Jackson.

Excerpt: Riverside Records, was a United States record label specializing in jazz. Founded by Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews in 1953 in New York City, the label was a major presence in the jazz record industry for a decade. Almost all their new jazz recordings were produced by Keepnews, who served as creative head of the label (and several subsidiaries, most notably Jazzland Records, with Grauer directing the company's sales and business operations. Initially the company was dedicated to reissuing early jazz material licensed from the Chicago-based Paramount Records label and Gennett Records. Reissued artists included Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver Ma Rainey and James P. Johnson, but the label began is... Thelonious Monk - Solo Monk (HD FULL ALBUM) - YouTube Thelonious Monk - Solo Monk (HD FULL ALBUM) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on Apr 3, 2016 Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk 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". Solo Monk is the eighth album Thelonious Monk released for Columbia Records in 1965. The album is composed entirely of solo piano work by Monk. The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek states "This is perhaps the solo piano record to have by Monk". (Taken from Wikipedia) Thelonious Monk - Pianist, Songwriter - Biography.com Thelonious Monk Thelonious Monk is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and one of first creators of modern jazz. IN THESE GROUPS Famous People Who Died in Englewood quotes “[Thelonious Monk] was my best friend ... If it hadn't been for him, I'm not so sure I would have been me.

I learned so much playing with him, being with him.” Thelonious Monk Thelonious Monk - An American Original (TV-14; 2:30) Author Robin Kelley discusses his biography, "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original." Click "Buy Now" to learn more about the book. Video courtesy of Simon & Schuster. Synopsis Thelonious Monk is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and one of first creators of modern jazz and bebop. For much of his career, Monk played with small groups at Milton's Playhouse. Many of his compositions have become jazz standards, including "Well, You Needn't," "Blue Monk" and "Round Midnight." His spares and angular music had a levity and playfulness to it. Profile Musician. Thelonious Monk was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. When he was just four, his parents, Barbara and Thelonious, Sr., moved to New York City, where he would spend the next five decades of his life. Monk began studying classical piano when he was eleven but had already shown some aptitude for the instrument.

"I learned how to read before I took lessons," he later recalled. "You know, watching my sister practice her lessons over her shoulder." 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. At age seventeen, Monk dropped out of the esteemed Stuyvesant High School to pursue his music career. He toured with the so-called "Texas Warhorse," an evangelist and faith healer, before assembling a quartet of his own. Although it was typical to play for a big band at this time, Monk preferred a more intimate work dynamic that would allow him to experiment with his sound. 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. Alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, he explored the fast, jarring, and often improvised styles that would later become synonymous with modern jazz. Thelonious Monk's first known recording was made in 1944, when he worked as a member of Coleman Hawkins's quartet.

Monk didn't record under his own name, however, until 1947, when he played as the leader of a sextet session for Blue Note. Monk made a total of five Blue Note recordings between 1947 and 1952, including "Criss Cross" and "Evidence." These are generally regarded as the first works characteristic of Monk's unique jazz style, which embraced percussive playing, unusual repetitions and dissonant sounds. As Monk saw it, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes!" Though widespread recognition was still years away, Monk had already earned the regard of his peers as well as several important critics. In 1947, Monk married Nellie Smith, his longtime sweetheart. They later had two children, whom they named after Monk's parents, Thelonious and Barbara. In 1952, Monk signed a contract with Prestige Records, which yielded pieces like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Bags' Groove." The latter, which he recorded with Miles Davis in 1954, is sometimes said to be his finest piano solo ever.

Because Monk's work continued to be largely overlooked by jazz fans at large, Prestige sold his contract to Riverside Records in 1955. There, he attempted to make his first two recordings more widely accessible, but this effort was poorly received by critics. Not content to pander ineffectively to a nonexistent audience, Monk turned a page with his 1956 album, Brilliant Corners, which is usually considered to be his first true masterpiece. The album's title track made a splash with its innovative, technically demanding, and extremely complex sound, which had to be edited together from many separate takes. With the release of two more Riverside masterworks, Thelonious Himself and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, Monk finally received the acclaim he deserved. In 1957, the Thelonious Monk Quartet, which included John Coltrane, began performing regularly at the Five Spot in New York. Enjoying huge success, they went on to tour the United States and even make some appearances in Europe. By 1962, Monk was so popular that he was given a contract with Columbia Records, a decidedly more mainstream label than Riverside.

In 1964, Monk became one of four jazz musicians ever to grace the cover of Time Magazine. 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. After battling serious illness for several years, he passed away from a stroke in 1982. 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. 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. The image the public has been left with is that of a demanding, eccentric recluse with an inborn gift for piano. The real person was more complex. "People don't think of Thelonious as Mr. Mom," his son points out, recalling his father changing diapers, "but I clearly saw him do the Mr.

Mom thing, big-time." Whatever Thelonious was to the media, it's clear what his legacy will be to jazz music: that of a true originator. Monk probably said it best when he insisted that a "genius is one who is most like himself." Related Videos Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us ! Citation Information Black Kudos • Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk (October... Zoom Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight,” “Blue Monk,” “Ruby, My Dear,” “In Walked Bud,” and “Well, You Needn’t”. Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.

His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. He was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time, after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis. Early life Thelonious Monk was born October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk, two years after his sister Marion. A brother, Thomas, was born in January 1920. In 1922, the family moved to 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan, New York City. Monk started playing the piano at the age of six.

Although largely self-taught, he did study music theory, harmony, and arranging at the Juilliard School of Music. Monk attended Stuyvesant High School, but did not graduate. He toured with an evangelist in his teens, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz. In the early to mid-1940s, Monk was the house pianist at Minton’s Playhouse, a Manhattan nightclub. Much of Monk’s style was developed during his time at Minton’s, when he participated in after-hours “cutting competitions” which featured many leading jazz soloists of the time. The Minton’s scene was crucial in the formulation of bebop and it brought Monk into close contact with other leading exponents of the emerging idiom, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker and, later, Miles Davis. Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at the club. Monk’s style at this time was later described as “hard-swinging,” with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk’s stated influences included Duke Ellington, James P.

Johnson, and other early stride pianists. In the documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser, it is stated that Monk lived in the same neighborhood in New York City as Johnson and knew him as a teenager. Mary Lou Williams, who mentored Monk and his compatriots, spoke of Monk’s rich inventiveness in this period, and how such invention was vital for musicians since at the time it was common for fellow musicians to incorporate overheard musical ideas into their own works without giving due credit. “So, the boppers worked out a music that was hard to steal. I’ll say this for the 'leeches’, though: they tried. I’ve seen them in Minton’s busily writing on their shirt cuffs or scribbling on the tablecloth. And even our own guys, I’m afraid, did not give Monk the credit he had coming. Why, they even stole his idea of the beret and bop glasses.” Early recordings (1944–1954) In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet.

Hawkins was one of the earliest established jazz musicians to promote Monk, and Monk later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on the 1957 session with John Coltrane. Monk made his first recordings as leader for Blue Note in 1947 (later anthologised on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1) which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T. S. Monk, who is a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953. Barbara died in 1984 from cancer. In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. The police found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without the all-important cabaret card he was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several crucial years.

Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs. After his cycle of intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note during 1947–1952, he was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige he cut several highly significant, but at the time under-recognized, albums, including collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. 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 Miles Davis. Davis found Monk’s idiosyncratic accompaniment style difficult to improvise over and asked him to lay out (not accompany), which almost brought them to blows. However, in Miles Davis’ autobiography Miles, Davis claims that the anger and tension between Monk and himself never took place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were “rumors” and a “misunderstanding”. In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Europe, performing and recording in Paris.

Backstage Mary Lou Williams introduced him to Baroness Pannonica “Nica” de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild family and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She would be a close friend for the rest of Monk’s life, including taking responsibility for him when she and Monk were charged with marijuana possession. Riverside Records (1955–1961) 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. Indeed, with Monk’s consent, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. He willingly recorded two albums of jazz standards as a means of increasing his profile: Thelonious Monk Plays the Music of Duke Ellington (1955) and The Unique Thelonious Monk (1956). On the LP Brilliant Corners, recorded in late 1956, Monk mainly performed his own music.

The complex title track, which featured tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from multiple takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first success for Monk; according to Orrin Keepnews, “It was the first that made a real splash.” After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. Unfortunately little of this group’s music was documented due to contractual problems. Coltrane was signed to Prestige at the time, but Monk refused to return to his former label. 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 saxophone pioneer Coleman Hawkins, those results appearing in 1957 as the album Monk’s Music.

An amateur tape from the Five Spot (not the original residency, but 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, previously “rumoured to exist,” was recorded in high fidelity by Voice of America engineers, rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress in 2005, and released by Blue Note “Crepuscule With Nellie”, recorded in 1957, “was Monk’s only, what’s called through-composed composition, meaning that there is no improvising. It is Monk’s concerto, if you will, and in some ways it speaks for itself. But he wrote it very, very carefully and very deliberately and really struggled to make it sound the way it sounds. [… I]t was his love song for Nellie,” said biographer Robin Kelley in an interview. The Five Spot residency ended Christmas 1957, Coltrane left to rejoin Miles Davis’s group, and the band was effectively disbanded.

Monk did not form another long-term band until June 1958, when he began a second residency at the Five Spot, again with a quartet, this time with Griffin (and later Charlie Rouse) on tenor, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums. On October 15, 1958, en route to a week-long engagement for the quartet at the Comedy Club in Baltimore, Maryland, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer the policemen’s questions or cooperate with them, they beat him with a blackjack. Though the police were authorized to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness’s car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as given under duress. Columbia Records (1962–1970) After extended negotiations, Monk signed in 1962 to Columbia Records, one of the big four American record labels of the day along with RCA Victor, Capitol, and Decca.

Monk’s relationship with Riverside had soured over disagreements concerning royalty payments and had concluded with a brace of European live albums; he had not recorded a studio album since 5 by Monk by 5 in June 1959. Working with producer Teo Macero on his debut for the label, the sessions in the first week of November had a stable line-up that had been with him for two years: tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse (who worked with Monk from 1959 to 1970), bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop. Monk’s Dream, his earliest Columbia album, was released in 1963. Columbia’s resources allowed Monk to be promoted more heavily than earlier in his career. Monk’s Dream would become the best-selling LP of his lifetime, and on February 28, 1964, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine, being featured in the article “The Loneliest Monk”. He continued to record studio albums, particularly Criss Cross, also from 1963, and Underground, from 1968.

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 waltz time piece, “Ugly Beauty”. As had been the case with Riverside, his period with Columbia Records contains many live albums, including Miles and Monk at Newport (1963), Live at the It Club and Live at the Jazz Workshop, both recorded in 1964, the latter not being released until 1982. After the departure of Ore and Dunlop, the remainder of the rhythm section in Monk’s quartet during the bulk of his Columbia period was Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, both of whom joined in 1964, Along with Rouse, they remained with Monk for over four years, his longest-serving band. 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. … [Monk] wasn’t so political. […O]f course, I challenge that [in the biography],” said Kelley.

Later life Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s, and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last studio recordings as a leader were made in November 1971 for the English Black Lion label, near the end of a worldwide tour with the Giants of Jazz, a group which included Dizzy Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Al McKibbon and Art Blakey. Bassist Al 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. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn’t say 'Good morning’, 'Goodnight’, 'What time?’ Nothing. Why, I don’t know.

He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn’t communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly.” 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.” Art Blakey reports that Monk was excellent at both chess and checkers. The documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) attributes Monk’s quirky behaviour to mental illness. In the film, Monk’s son, T. S. Monk, says that his father sometimes did not recognize him, and he reports that Monk was hospitalized on several occasions due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking.

Physicians recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk’s illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead. Other theories abound: Leslie Gourse, author of the book Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk (1997), reported that at least one of Monk’s psychiatrists failed to find evidence of manic depression (bipolar disorder) or schizophrenia. Another physician maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and prescribed drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage. As his health declined, Monk’s last six years were spent as a guest in the Weehawken, New Jersey, home of his long-standing patron and friend, Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who had also nursed Charlie Parker during his final illness. Monk did not play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. He died of a stroke on February 17, 1982, and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. In 1993, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2006 he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize citing “a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz.” During his life time, his style was not universally appreciated. Poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin once dismissed Monk as “the elephant on the keyboard”. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz was established in 1986 by the Monk family and Maria Fisher. Its mission is to offer public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the globe, helping students develop imaginative thinking, creativity, curiosity, a positive self-image, and a respect for their own and others’ cultural heritage. In addition to hosting an annual International Jazz Competition since 1987, the Institute also recently helped, through its partnership with UNESCO, designate April 30, 2012, as the first annual International Jazz Day. Monk was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

1000+ images about "The piano ain't got no wrong notes." ~ Thelonious Monk on Pinterest | Allen ginsberg, Jazz and Town hall Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas "The piano ain't got no wrong notes." ~ Thelonious Monk 207 Pins2.41k Followers Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight," "Blue Monk," "Ruby, My Dear," "In Walked Bud," and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.

Question: Which jazz pianist and composer 1917-1982 composed "Round Midnight" and "Criss Cross"?
Answer: (Thelonius) MONK