aworks :: "new" american classical music

Trinkle Tinkle (1952). Thelonious Monk /not one-handed/

Bud Powell via last.fm

On Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviews Robin Kelley, the author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. In particular, they spend a fair amount of time on Trinkle Tinkle and Monk's life in the early fifties when he was arrested for heroin possession after Bud Powell passed on the drugs when they were stopped by the police. This resulted in the lost of his New York cabaret card until 1957.

Although Monk was ultimately diagnosed as bipolar, Gross also asks if he might have been autistic but Kelley thinks not.

They also talk about Monk's ability, unlike other bop musicians, to play with a strong left-hand as influenced by the great stride pianists like Willie "The Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson. From the book:

A later generation of bebop pianists would often be accused of one-handedness; their right hands flew along with melodies and improvisations, while their "weak " left hands just plonked chords. To the great stride players that gathered at Johnson's house and elsewhere, the left hand was just as important as the right...He [Monk] was exceedingly well grounded in the piano players who preceded him, adding his own originality to a very sound foundation.

Terry Gross goes on to gush about Monk's versions of standards including Gershwin's Nice Work If You Can Get it...

Trinkle Tinkle - Thelonious Mo...

Nice Work If You Can Get It - ...

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Étude Op. 25, No. 1 (1825). Frédéric Chopin /the truth is/

Thelonious Monk via last.fm

From the third page of Robin Kelley's Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original:

The truth is Thelonious Monk possessed an impressive knowledge of, and appreciation for, Western classical music, not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of hymns and gospel music, American popular songs, and a variety of obscure art songs that defy easy categorization. For him, it was all music...Monk loved Frédéric Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Bach, and like many of his peers of the bebop generation, he took an interest in Igor Stravinsky. And his life was no more monastic than any other urban jazzman's.

Kelley goes on to research the life of Monk's slave ancestors and points out the connection with Julius Monk, a white cabaret impresario in New York whose great-grandfather owned those slaves:

Had he known this history, he might have been inspired to head down to the Five Spot after his show and thank Thelonious personally for the privileged life he was able to enjoy...Julius's excellent musical education, like his father's and brother's medical school education, was partly paid for with inherited wealth, the source of which turned out to be the sweat and toil of John Jack Monk [Thelonious' great-grandfather] and the other African-descended people held in bondage.

This is going to be an interesting book. The NY Times has an excerpt.