MONK TALK

by Pearl Gonzalez

from Down Beat (October 28, 1971)

Thelonious Monk came out from the wings alone and played a bawdy-house blues version of "I Love You" to an audience that didn't want to go home. Later, in the dressing room at Mexico City's Bellas Artes, he was signing autographs between wiping the perspiration from his face while being questioned like a fugitive from Interpol.

"Was that song your way of showing appreciation to the audience?"

"Yes, it was. Been playing it for 20 years and most people don't realize what I'm trying to say. Some of them don't even know the name of the song."

"What do you think the importance of jazz is?"

"It stimulates a lot of music you hear. All music. Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz. All musicians stimulate each other. The vibrations get scattered around."

"How do you select musicians?"

"Just hire them."

"You look tired. Can we continue this tomorrow at your hotel?"

Tomorrow at his hotel.

"Where were you born?"

He showed his passport. It said North Carolina, 1917.

"I started playing music," he said as his left foot seemed to be keeping rhythm with unheard music, "when I was 5. I always wanted to play the piano. A lady gave us a piano. The player-piano kind. I saw how the rolls made the keys move. Very interesting. Sounded pretty good to me. I felt I did not want to waste this person's gift, so I learned to use it. I learned how to read music all by myself. My sister used to take piano lessons, like all girls whose brothers take violin lessons. Only I stayed with the piano. I learned the chords and fingering on the piano. I figured it out. I jumped from that to reading. But I had to go further than that. I had a little teaching; you have to have some kind of teaching."

"Did any classical composer have any influence on you?"

"I don't know what you mean?"

"You know. Like Bach, Beethoven and so on."

"Oh, you mean Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky and guys like that." He laughed and added: "I only mentioned their names because you're wearing a red jacket."

"Well, did any of them impress you?" I asked after I stopped laughing at the humor of this really sweet, warm man.

"Well, not too much of the classical composers. But the jazz musicians impress me. Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it. I've never copied anyone, though; just play music."

"What do you think your sound is?"

"Music."

"Let's face it. You have your own style."

"Face? Is there a face in music? Isn't there a song like that? 'Let's Face the Music?

Monk's saxophonist, Paul Jeffrey, was in the room and the two of us roared along with our cornball friend.

"Where were we?", I asked.

"We were facing the music. Well, you face the public all of the time. And it's something I always wanted to do. No one ever pushed me. If someone wants to play music you do not have to get a ruler or whips to make them practice."

"When was your first professional date?"

"It's so far back." he started laughing and scratching the back of his neck. "Time flies. Let's see. I was playing birthday parties. House-rent parties where they used to sell whisky during prohibition. They'd hire you to play in the house, same as a birthday party. They gave these house-rent parties to pay the rent. Then when Roosevelt came on the scene and brought whisky back I only played in the summer because I was going to school then. So I'd take a gig during the summer. Then I played in a three-piece band in a cabaret. No, I guess you'd call it a plain bar and grill."

"Was this in North Carolina?"

"No. I left North Carolina when I was 4 years old. My mother didn't want me to grow up in North Carolina so I grew up in New York City where I kept on playing music. Things kept right on happening. Gigs. Going on one-night gig jobs."

"Did you think about becoming a band leader?"

"All musicians are potential band leaders. Do you mean was I considered a professional? Union-wise, I guess."

"How do you feel about your influence on jazz?"

"I'm always surprised people dig it. I'm always surprised if someone requests something special."

"Where's the first big place you played?"

"You mean capacity, prestige? Every place can be big; a small place can become the biggest place. Did you ever hear of Minton's Playhouse? No?"

"When did you start to find an individual sound in the world of music?"

"I always believed in being myself. You have to notice and dig what other musicians do though, even though you don't copy."

"What other interests do you have?"

"Life in general."

"What do you do about it?"

"Keep breathing."

"I hear you don't give out too many interviews, why is that?"

"I can't figure that one out myself. Sometimes I talk, and sometimes I don't feel like talking."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I'd like to know, too."

"Moods?"

"I don't know what makes people talk. Maybe it's whisky. A lot of people talk a lot full of whisky, in other words."

"Is whisky and drugs the atmosphere of musicians?"

"The majority of juice-heads and winos and junkies aren't musicians. Musicians are such a small minority. You have all types of people in all types of professions, like the motion picture actors. They drink. Why do they say this about musicians? These other people are very important in the entertainment world. So most people who do this are not musicians."

"How do you relax?"

"Playing ping pong. Sometimes I play backstage between performances."

"Have you had any problems because you are black?"

"The problems are there before you're born. But you do not have to run into them. It never bothered me. I never though much about race. I came up in the New York streets. There were all types of people. Every block in New York was a different city. Each block was a different town. Have this on that block and something else on the next block -- that's the way it goes. People have gotten killed going to the next block to see their girl!"

"Worth it?"

"All of them are worth it."

"How did you meet Mrs. Monk?"

"You'd better ask her about that."

"How many children do you have?"

"My son, whom you met and who has been playing drums with me for a month. And my daughter's here too. She's 17 years old. She likes to dance. The family travels a lot with me when they can. My wife always does."

Thelonious Monk, Jr. came in and said "hi".

"Hi. where did you go to school?"

"Stuyvesant High."

"Were you good in mathematics? It's so interwoven in music."

Monk, Sr.: "All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians."

Me to Sr.: "What do you feel like when you're writing music?"

Monk, Sr.: "Like I've accomplished something. Feel as if its a fulfillment. Something's been pulled through."

Me to Sr.: "Have you written words?"

Monk, Sr.: "Years ago. But they were never put out. Used that type of words expressing -- well..."

He looked a little shy so I noticed the ring on his finger.

Me to Sr.: "Where'd you get that fabulous ring?"

Monk, Sr.: "It's an opal I got in Hong Kong. We've been to Japan often. Hong Kong once."

Me to Sr.: "Is that where you got that wild yellow belted silk suit?"

Monk, Sr.: (Laughing). "The family had to force me to buy it. I like casual clothes much better. We've given a couple of concerts in Tokyo."

Me to Sr.: "What about that other ring?"

Monk, Sr.: "I had it made in New York years ago, in the '50s. I designed it." (It's a black onyx with the letters M O on top separated by two large diamonds followed by the letters N K underneath.)

Me to Sr.: "How do you feel about money?"

Monk, Sr.: "I don't worry about it. I just let the family spend a quarter of it."

Me to Sr.: "Are you interested in politics?"

Monk, Sr.: "That's all you hear about on the radio."

Me to Sr.: "What do you think about the Black Panthers?"

Monk, Sr.: "Why don't they call them the Black Leopards?"

Me to Sr.: "Ever think about writing a book?"

Monk, Sr.: "I thought about it because other people brought it to my attention. coming to a decision is something else. I don't know."

Me to Sr.: "What do you want to do the rest of your life?"

Monk, Sr.: "I want to enjoy it."

Me to Sr.: "How?"

Monk, Sr.: "That's what I want to find out from reporters. If you know the best way to enjoy life. I'd like to know. I believe everybody would like to find out."

Me to Sr.: "How do you feel about God?"

Monk, Sr.: "Why bring religion into it?"

Me to Sr.: "It's part of you, how you feel about it. Are you a religious man?"

Monk, Sr.: "Cool it a while. Don't get me too fast. This is a very religious city, isn't it? Do Catholic priests still have to come in the streets dressed without their habits? I was brought up as a Protestant. I went to a lot of Baptist churches and a lot of Protestant churches, Sunday school and all that. I played piano in church in a choir. I once traveled with an Evangelist for a couple of years. It was in the Southwest, and I was a teenager."

Me to Sr.: "How long did you stay with him?"

Monk, Sr.: "It was a she. I stayed two years. When I came back to New York I started playing jazz. That's when it all started."

Me to Sr.: "Do you think much about religion now?"

Monk, Sr.: "At all times. You just know everybody goes for religion."

Me to Sr.: "How do you feel about 'Jesus Christ Superstar?'

Monk, Sr.: "It's a gimmick."

Monk, Jr.: "It's gone too far for just a gimmick. I think its healthy. The kids do not accept just anything. This is just another fight of the young."

Me to Sr.: "How do you feel about that?"

Monk, Sr.: "No comment."

Monk, Jr.: "The people who are running the church are saying one thing and doing another. Why, the Catholic Church can pay off the national debt."

Monk, Sr.: "How do you know? Have you seen their books?"

Monk, Jr.: "The Catholic Church owns everything inside the Catholic churches and all kinds of property."

Monk, Sr.: "This is a Catholic country, you know."

Monk, Jr.: "I can't help that. Look at Harlem. The church isn't helping the people. They throw people out. This is not an opinion, Dad, this a fact."

Monk, Sr.: "Well, I'm not a preacher."

Me to both: "Do you discuss these things at home?"

Monk, Sr.: "All kinds of things come up. Mostly they talk with their mother. You know, I did a gig in the Catholic Church way back, in the Village. Played the same kind of music last night."

Me to Monks and Jeffrey: "Do you think music reflects its time?"

Jeffrey: "Definitely."

Monk, Sr.: "It's not the same kind of music. You don't have as much fire and enthusiasm. It happens to everybody with age."

Me: "That wasn't exactly my question."

Monk, Jr.: "I think more than my Dad about what he said. There are changes a man goes through. You don't have to get old with years. You can get old because you get on something."

Jeffrey: "Music changes over the years."

Monk, Sr.: "You play the same records and it's not the same."

Jeffrey: "As long as you are living, time is going to have effect."

Monk, Jr.: "Music has to be different because everything is different. We're looking at different horizons."

Jeffrey: "Everything publicized is not necessarily good music. The public is fed so much malarky they don't know good music. different people judge it different ways."

Monk, Jr.: "The commercial aspects become dominant even in rock and roll."

Monk, Sr.: "Good music is something you enjoy. It's pleasing to you. It's good to your ear. Anything that sounds good to your ear, a nice type of sound, is music."

Monk, Jr.: "I agree. But I'll go one step further. Good music has a tendency to last."

Me to Jr.: "What are you studying for?"

Monk, Jr.: "I've graduated a prep school in Darien, Conn., and I'm going to study music, and continue playing drums."

Charlie Bourgeois calls on the phone, and Monk, Sr. goes into the bedroom to answer. Bourgeois was managing the Monk group, which was taking part in the International Jazz Festival. Monk, Sr. came back into the room and said Charlie wanted to talk to me.

Charlie: "Let the guys out. You can finish the interview on the way to Bellas Artes."

I went back into the living room and announced:

"Charlie wants me to let you go to work."

Monk, Sr.: "There's still time. It's only across the street."

Me: "Well, I don't want to be responsible if you guys don't turn up for work, so just one more question," and I got up to put on the red jacket which Monk, Sr. helped me with. Then a chambermaid opened the door of the suite and the sound of mariachis was heard. Monk froze. He listened a while, then put his finger in the air and said:

"B flat!"

After we recovered, Monk, Sr. said what was the question.

Me: "What do you think the purpose of life is?"

Monk, Sr.: "To die."

Me: "But between birth and death, there's a lot to do."

"You asked a question, that's the answer," he said with his back to me, staring out of the 12th floor that overlooked a valley once conquered by another kind of sound led by a chief with relatively few forces in his band.

© by Pearl Gonzalez