A Profile of Thelonious Monk - Exploring the Life of the Influential Jazzman

When Frank London Brown published this interview with Thelonious Monk, he was thirty-one years old and about to release his first novel, the award-winning Trumbull Park. Born in Kansas City, he grew up in Chicago, attended Wilberforce University and graduated from Chicago’s Roosevelt University. Brown was not only a major literary figure in Chicago during this period, but he was very close to the jazz world (as a vocalist he performed with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons). Tragically, he died suddenly in 1962, just prior to the release of his novel The Mythmakers, which was subsequently published posthumously. It includes an unusual, sage character named “monk.”

Thelonious Sphere Monk finally has been discovered.

For years a mystery man of modern jazz, Monk now has emerged from a six-year involuntary absence from New York's night-club circuit to win first place in the Down Beat Critics poll, surpassing such men as Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck. In the year since his return to the jazz clubs, Monk has received rave reviews in the New York Times for his Randalls Island jazz festival appearance, offers to compose for French films, and notice in magazines that customarily ignore jazz.

How did this taciturn creator of far-out music get that way? What made him different? What has he done in music that others haven't? Mrs. Nellie Monk, his articulate wife, said about his complex personality:

"Thelonious was never like ordinary people, not even as a child. He always knew who he was. Sometimes when he plays the blues, he goes back to the real old-time pianists, like Jelly-Roll Morton and James P. Johnson. I'm always amazed, because I know he hasn't spent a lot of time listening to these pianists - yet it's there in his music.

"He has smaller hands than most pianists, so he had to develop a different style of playing to fully express himself."

Robby Barnes, a singer, and Baron Bennerson, a bartender, leaned on the bar in New York City's Green gables, one of the two W.62nd St. bars that Monk occasionally goes to. They spoke of him, mingling awe with admiration.

"Monk's mother always catered to him," Bennerson said, "He was the first guy in the neighborhood to wear peg pants. We all laughed at him then. But he said, "You guys'll soon be wearing them yourselves!" Right after that, pegs became the thing. We looked up to Monk from then on.

Bennerson remembered another anecdote: "Monk has a '56 Buick Special. Not long ago I bought a '56 Buick Roadmaster. When Monk saw my car, he tried to tell me that his Buick Special was a better car than my Roadmaster. In fact he said his car is the best in the world! He thinks that way."

Barnes nodded and summed it up: "Monk always was a strange, curious cat. When we were kids, he would come upon a bunch of us playing basketball, baseball - anything - and say, 'I can beat all you guys playing.' Then he would!"

Harry Colomby, Monk's youthful, schoolteacher manager, offered what perhaps constitutes the most reverent description of this almost legendary figure:

"Sometimes I feel like I'm breaking into his world. He never engages in any kind of conversation he doesn't like . . He disconnects sometimes - then all of a sudden he comes up with a statement that is so profound it scares you.

"He's always been like that. Monk has the kind of personal freedom that very few people have. He can keep his inner self apart from outside influences. I once spent the night at his house, and when I woke up, I saw Monk at the piano composing while the radio on the top of the piano was blasting away, playing hillbilly music.

" I've never seen any other person with such a tremendous ability to concentrate. Nothing bothers him - not his kids - not the bustle around the house - phone calls . . He's like a real monk. Nothing else in the world matters to him but his music . . Nothing can distract him."

To say that Monk is doggedly individual becomes something of an understatement when one considers the whole man. He is singular in the strict sense of the word.

One phase of the interview for this story took place while Monk was in bed. It was 4:30 p.m. "Often Monk doesn't go right to bed after coming home from work," Mrs. Monk explained, "He talks, writes or sometimes just lies in the bed without closing his eyes. Sometimes it's daylight before he goes to sleep.

Neatly folded white covers reached half way across his barrel chest. His small, smooth hands seemed out of place, connected to hairy, dockworker's arms. His goatee jutted from a full square chin, and he twisted it tight and released it and repeated the gesture. Monk's black hair was combed in a military brush, and thick, though narrow, eyebrows curved upwards from the brow of deep-set eyes.

He is a tall, rugged-appearing man, a 200-pounder, and "when he walks into a room, he dominates it," according to Colomby. "The force of Monk's personality intimidates you." The manager cited an incident that occurred on the set of the Stars of Jazz television show.

"Monk was supposed to play a number on the show - one-two-three, like that, no more," Colomby said, "But while Monk was doodling around with the piano during a coffee break, the stagehands, camera-men, and everybody who could hear him, wandered over to the piano. Then in came Count Basie and Billie Holiday, and Lester Young - all the stars! They gathered around the piano and stared as though they'd been hypnotized, as though it was the first time they'd ever heard anything like that.

"The director was so impressed by the expressions on their faces that he had Billie and Count and the rest of them stand at the piano when the show went on the air, just so he could televise their reactions while Monk played."

Monk himself said of his power of concentration, "I've even composed while sitting in my son's wagon in front of the house."

Monk Jr.'s red wagon figured in a dispute Monk Sr. had with Riverside Records, his current recording company, over the cover of the Monk's Music album.

"They wanted me to pose in a monk's habit, on a pulpit, holding a glass of whiskey," the pianist said. "I told them no."

Then with a wry smile, Monk added, "Monks don't even stand in pulpits. Then they wanted to dress me in evening clothes, white tie and all. I told them I would pose in a wagon, because I have actually composed while sitting in my kid's wagon on the front sidewalk."

And that was the way it was.

Monk is clothes conscious, for all his indifference to the usual worldly affairs. Nellie Monk, referring to her husband's clothes at a time when work was scarce and money scarcer, said, "He was always neat, no matter how hard times got."

Then she elaborated: "Monk is a proud man. He doesn't suffer on the surface. He never let people know how bad off he was, even when he couldn't find work. Not even when he was sick in hospital. He's like a rock. I think that's why people admire him. He proves that one can keep his integrity under the worse circumstances. It's interesting that some of the letters Monk gets thank him for just being himself. He couldn't be any other way."

Monk's integrity has led him into a lot of trouble, according to his manager.

"Monk lost his work permit for six years," Colomby said, "because he refused to inform on a friend. He couldn't work in any New York club yet he wouldn't tell, and he wouldn't leave New York. 'This is my city,' Monk would say. This was a low point in Monk's life. He had an unfavorable contract with another recording company. They didn't push his records, and he got very little money for his work. His only work consisted of a concert now and then, a little from records, and an occasional out-of-town job. He could have got more out-of-town work except for the fact that he wouldn't work under scale. He would say, 'If I do, those guys will get used to it and want to make the other musicians work cheap, too.'

"Monk is always aware of the problems of other musicians. He used to promote concerts himself. Sometimes he'd let his two children sit on the stage while he played.

"A lot of Monk's problems arise from the fact that he has a sharp business eye. He hates matinees, calls that an extra day. He has an uncanny ability to tell how much a club is making. Booking agencies didn't like this about him, and so a lot of strange rumors about Monk's undependability began to come out of nowhere and scare off the club owners. No one has a greater sense of business responsibility than Monk."

Monk received his New York City police work permit only a year ago, and things have been happening nonstop ever since. He not only has kept pace in his field but also has continued to contribute new concepts upon which many established musicians rely.

His style is emotional. The surprised cries from the Five Spot audiences attest to the emotional appeal of his music; yet Monk's music is mathematical, too, as is all music. Monk's pre-professional reputation was based to a large extent upon his mathematical ability as a Stuyvesant high school student. This facility with mathematical problems has been a guide in the study of basic musical problems of harmony, rhythm, and melody.

Monk's secret is that he has pushed ahead in the study of musical problems which have not yet been thoroughly investigated. In making a study of specific concrete musical problems, Monk has been able to rely upon his own findings and not on the general truths that attract and satisfy the large majority of today's modern jazz musicians. Monk said of his technique:

“Everything I play is different. Different melody, different harmony, different structure. Each piece is different from the other one. I have a standard, and when the song tells a story, when it gets a certain sound, then it's thorough . . completed." Monk's playing ability frequently has been a matter for discussion, particularly since his Critics poll designation as the No.1 jazz pianist.

Seldom does one hear the flashy, long, single-line runs that characterize so many refugees from Bach, Bud Powell, and Art Tatum. The avoidance of this technique, more than anything else, has offended the tradition-conditioned ears of today's modern-jazz listeners.

Monk can make these runs. I recently heard him do it at the Five Spot. He did it so adeptly that he stopped all conversation for the rest of the set.

Two things, however, prevent him from relying upon this comparatively easy technique: First, he is too stubborn to acquiesce and "play like Bud" or Tatum; second, and more important, Monk doesn't have to use long, single-noted runs to say what he wants to say.

In other words, he knows what scientists and mathematicians know: Basicallv different musical problems can only be solved by basically different methods.

Being different in a conformist society has its taxing moments, and Monk has paid his taxes for a long, hard time.

The controversial father of an 8-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl continues to live in the rear apartment of an old tenement building on E.63rd St., surrounded by housing projects and warehouses.

Monk's tan, polished baby grand piano stands like a throne in the same room in which there is also the kitchen sink, and icebox, and a small kitchen table. The living room and bedroom are not much larger than a good-sized closet.

That this cramped space is orderly and attractive is a tribute to Mrs Monk. Several pieces of new furniture indicate the slowly changing fortunes of the Monk family.

But there is another reason: The old furniture, including Monk's piano and some of his uncopyrighted music, was destroyed by a fire that burned out the apartment. Everything went - clothes, letters, precious clippings. Mrs Monk had removed most of her husband's music to the one shelf in the house that escaped the flames.

Monk's imperturbability, bordering on stoicism, has enabled him to stand up under an obstacle-strewn life. The fact that his mother, Barbara, a former civil service worker, was a Jehovah's Witness may account for Monk's detachment from worldly concerns.

"I don't believe in luck, good or bad," Monk once declared, "If a guy's good, he'll make it. If not, he won't."

Part of the resentment some modern-jazz musicians feel toward Monk may stem from the fear of inevitable public recognition of Monk as the procreator of musical advances for which they have received credit. The contributions of Monk now are being recognized as the sources they are. And they fast are becoming the mainstream of modern jazz. Listen to Monk's influence in the work of Mal Waldron, Horace Silver, Cecil Taylor, Randy Weston, Kenny Drew, Martial Solal, Dave Brubeck. Even Duke Ellington pays his tribute to Thelonious in his introductory solo in the Ellington at Newport recording.

Monk never has been unsure of his own solutions, though he has had good cause to doubt the faculties of the American jazz listening public for appreciating them This nearly arrogant self-confidence, coupled with the insecurity of his fellow professionals, has created pressures on Monk to which he has reacted by drawing further into himself; thus his own defense mechanism has helped create more myths about him.

One interview or 10 cannot shatter the protective wall Thelonious Monk has built around himself. His answers to questions are guarded, cryptic, and even defensive, yet they are honest, intelligent responses when it is considered that he has been cuffed about a good deal and that much of this has resulted only because he will be different.

"I want to achieve happiness in life, in music - the same thing." he said. "My influences? I am influenced by everything and everybody. There used to be a time when I would go around joints where there would be just piano players and you played piano by yourself, no rhythm section . . . A lot of piano players would be playing. You know people have tried to put me off as being crazy. Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy. A person should do the thing he likes best, the way it pleases him."

When asked where he thinks modern jazz is going, he replied (to the exasperation of his wife): "I don't know where it's going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere; it just happens."

At this point, Mrs Monk, slightly piqued by Monk's reticence, exclaimed, "You must know how you feel. Are you satisfied with where it's going? Is it going on the right direction?"

Monk glanced at the foot of the bed where she sat, and said, "I don't know where it's going. Where is it going?"

Mrs Monk, not to be defeated, countered, "Do you think that anything can be done to educate the coming generation? So that they know quality when they hear it, so that they have discriminating taste? Are they listening to the right sounds except for yourself? Are you satisfied with what you are presenting to the public?"

Monk answered, "Are they doing something about it? I don't know how people are listening."

By this time, Monk appeared to be undergoing a third degree in a precinct back room. The microphone of a tape recorder sat on his night stand. I sat in a chair near the night stand, his niece and wife sat on the edge of the bed, and Monk lay propped on a pillow, his chest rising and falling rapidly, perspiration ridging his brow. But his hands were calm, twisting his goatee.

Monk's neice tried to amplify the question: "Do you think the people are being educated properly?"

"Well, they've got schools," he said.

His niece, an impertinent teenager, snapped "Unk, are they learning anything in the schools?"

Smiling, he replied "I haven't been in the schools."

At the outset, his wife had told Monk, "Thelonious, you can open your mouth when you speak." He had answered, "I talk so plain a deaf and dumb man can hear me."

Nellie then had settled down to a nice, relaxed interview.

"Why don't you do some of those corny jokes down at the Five Spot like you did in Philadelphia?" she asked her husband.

Then to me, she said, "He would make remarks that were so timely that you would have to laugh. He doesn't even have a mike at the Five Spot because he wants to keep the singers away."

Here Monk protested. "That's (the mike's absence) because the horn would be playing into the mike," he said. "It would be too loud."

Mrs Monk added, "Most of the people have never seen that (joking) side of him. He won't do it down there. Like last year he did a dance . . during the solos."

Monk's comments on various subjects are always revealing: "My music is not a social commentary on discrimination or poverty or the like. I would have written the same way even if I had not been a Negro."

(Manager Colomby said, "Monk once told me that, 'when I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But everytime I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.")

Monk is definitely aware of the racial conflicts throughout the world, but even this has not penetrated his world of music.

On the sudden prominance of Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Frank Foster, Wilbur Ware, Johnny Griffin after each had become associated him, the pianist said: "I have noticed that, with a lot of musicians." Then with a wry smile, "I don't know why it happens."

About records he listens to: "I listen to everything."

About a Charlie Parker - Dizzy Gillespie - Monk recording session: "Just another session."

About a Miles Davis - Milt Jackson - Monk session: "They're all just sessions."

About how he met his wife? "Mental Telepathy."

Mrs Monk confirmed this, explaining, "I was playing in a playground, and we had heard about each other. One day he passed the playground, and our eyes met, and I knew him, and he knew me. We didn't speak then, and we didn't actually meet until six months later. Years later he could tell me what I wore that day."

Monk is a man of contrast. He seems to contradict himself in his statements and his actions.

While at the Five Spot, the big man of music appeared not to hear a comment concerning the beauty of his composition Crepescule with Nellie, yet he went to the stand before the band's intermission was over and played the entire song.

His personality is one of the enigmas of jazz. It has led him to venture beyond the point at which most other jazz composers have left off. Thelonious, working with concrete musical problems has been able to move on to songs such as Evidence and In Walked Bud and thus rebuild known melodic structures into new harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic compositions.

Ornithology by Bennie Harris changed How High the Moon into a different song, and George Russell's reconstruction of Love for Sale into Ezzthetic indicate that the land in which Monk for years has been trail-blazing is the logical one for other serious jazz musicians to seek musical solutions.

The world now seems to be "ready" for Thelonious Sphere Monk.

"Why are people afraid of me?" he asked. "I've been robbed three times; they must not be afraid of me."

He has been through disappointments, malicious rumors, exile, sickness, and a destructive fire. Now, his bandwagon seems to be rolling. The onetime skeptics are hopping on.