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Old 07-05-2009, 07:08 AM   #22 (permalink)
Gavin B.
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Theonious Monk was the best jazz music composer ever and also the epitome of coolness. I love the way Monk playfully used sharps and flats in all of his piano playing and makes abrupt changes in tempo, often three or four times in the same song. Monk's deconstructive approach to jazz was and is still a revolutionary approach to music. He was the bridge between the bop era and the free jazz era. All of the adventurous players like Mingus, Miles, Ornette and Coltrane all took all of their cues from what Monk was doing with his music.

Monk had a small body of work but nearly every song he wrote was flawless jewel of musical perfection. His piano playing was completely intuitive and defied all the rules of conventional musicianship. Monk was completely unschooled in musical theory and maybe that's why his playing is so originial.

Notice how Monk was never afraid to pound away at the piano like it was a percussion instrument And the piano is technically a percussion instrument because striking the keyboard causes the hammers (or mallets) to fly up and strike the finely tuned strings within the soundboard of the piano. Monk left a lot of space in his rhythmic solos and had an unusual technique, many people thought that he was an inferior pianist. Monk was a minimalist in an era where pianists were expected to showcase their technical prowress with displays of their virtuosity. Monk played only as much as required to express the body and soul of the song. He never played a wasted note.

Monk was acutally a brilliant pianist. Early on, Monk 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.


Round About Midnight was written by Monk in the Fifties and became a standard jamming tune for jazz musicans in smoke filled bars from Paris to New York during the Beat era.



Monk was a man of few words and he spoke almost exclusively in the language of music and as you can see from the studio video I've posted below. The record company executives appear to be in dire need of a translator to understand the Monk's free association style of talking.

What a cool cat. He epitomized the style of the bebop era.

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Last edited by Gavin B.; 07-05-2009 at 07:42 AM.
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