Why Was Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser Important
- Surprisingly, there are no biographies in book form on Monk. There is, however, the excellent 1989 film documentary, Straight, No Chaser (Warner Bros.), which combines footage shot in the late 1960s with more recent interviews with his son, Thelonious Monk, Jr., tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, and others.
- On 10 January 1967 the quartet recorded the remaining compositions 'Straight, No Chaser', 'We See' and 'Kojo No Tsuki' also known as 'Japanese Folk Song,' and the session was completed with a solo version of 'Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea.'
Charlotte Zwerin's 'Straight, No Chaser' is a great documentary about a profound and mysterious artist: jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who would have been 100 years old on Oct. 10 of this year. Thelonious Sphere Monk (what a name!) was born October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North.
The first jazz album I ever bought was 1956's 'Brilliant Corners.' At first it confounded me, but it is now one of my favorite LPs ever. Even though some of the greatest musicians EVER played on it, you can tell that they had to work hard to keep up with Monk!His 1940s Blue Note recordings ('Genius of Modern Music' Vols. 1 & 2) are pretty fantastic too. They still sound pretty far out 60 years later.'
Why Was Thelonious Monk Straight No Chaser Important Man
Monk's Dream' is probably the easiest intro to Monk. By 1962, when it was recorded, his band was solidified, the songs on the album are among his best-known, and the engineers at Columbia really knew how to capture beautiful-sounding jazz recordings. Click to expand.It should be noted that in most editions of Monk's Blue Note-era recordings, an important chunk of them end up as part of this parallel Milt Jackson album instead of as part of Vols 1 & 2:In the CD era, this album always contains a July 2, 1948 session featuring 'Evidence,' 'Misterioso,' 'Epistrophy,' 'I Mean You,' 'All The Things You Are,' and 'I Should Care.' This practice has been going on since the early 1950's.but each release switches around WHICH of the pieces end up here.See also:(much of the information on these pages is my attempt at sorting out the confusion.)A 2 CD compilation called 'The Complete Genius' contains all of the Blue Note performances from these three discs.The more recent RVG remasterings of this material improve much of it, makes certain sessions sound worse (compared to a 1970 blue note LP, at least), and re-order the songs in a much more pleasing manner than the previous version.
Teaches self to read musicThelonious Sphere Monk was born on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount,North Carolina. The first musical sounds he heard were from a playerpiano that his family owned. At the age of five or six he began pickingout melodies on the piano and taught himself to read music by lookingover his sister's shoulder as she took lessons. About a yearlater the family moved to the San Juan Hill section of New York City,near the Hudson River.
His father became ill soon afterward and returnedto the South, leaving Thelonious's mother, Barbara, to raise himand his brother and sister. Though the family budget was tight, shemanaged to buy a baby grand Steinway piano, and when Thelonious turnedeleven she began paying for his weekly piano lessons. Even at that youngage it was clear that the instrument was part of his destiny.As a boy Monk received training in the gospel music style, accompanyingthe Baptist choir in which his mother sang, and playing piano and organduring church services. At the same time he was becoming initiated intothe world of jazz; near his home were several jazz clubs as well as thehome of the great Harlem stride pianist James P. Johnson, from whom Monkpicked up a great deal. By the age of thirteen he was playing in a localbar and grill with a trio.
At the Apollo Theater's famous weeklyamateur music contests, Monk won so many times that he was eventuallybanned from the event. The New York sceneIn 1939 Monk put his first group together. His first important gig camein the early 1940s when he was hired as house pianist at a club calledMinton's. It was a time of dramatic innovation in jazz, when afaster, more complex style was developing. The musicians for this newmusic, called bebop, created it virtually on the spot. Yet while Monkwas important in inspiring bebop, his own music had few ties to anyparticular movement. Monk was Monk—an original—and theproof was in his compositions.As the 1940s progressed and bebop became more and more the rage,Monk's career declined.
In 1951 he was arrested with. Eccentric behavior causes troubleThe strange behavior that Monk displayed in public sometimes got himinto trouble. In 1958 he was arrested, undeservedly, for disturbing thepeace, and his cabaret license was revoked a second time. Forced to takeout-of-town gigs, he was separated from his two main sources ofstability—New York City and his wife Nellie. His odd behaviorintensified as a result. During one episode in 1959 in Boston,Massachusetts, state police picked him up and brought him to the GraftonState Hospital, where he was held for a week.Toward the end of the 1950s Monk began to receive the prestige he hadfor so long deserved.
His late 1950s recordings on the Riverside labelhad done so well that in 1962 he was offered a contract from Columbia.As a performer he was equally successful, commanding, in 1960, twothousand dollars for week-long engagements with his band and onethousand dollars for single performances. His December 1963 concert atNew York's Philharmonic Hall, a big-band presentation oforiginals, was for him a personal landmark.In the early 1970s Monk made a few solo and trio recordings for BlackLion in London and played a few concerts.
Beginning in the mid-1970s heisolated himself from his friends and colleagues, spending his finalyears at the home of the Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter in Weehawken,New Jersey. After playing a concert at Carnegie Hall in March 1976, Monkwas too weak physically to make further appearances. Corporate computer security boyle randy raymond panko answers video.
He died on February17, 1982, in Englewood Hospital, after suffering a massive stroke. Alongwith Miles Davis (1926–1991) and John Coltrane(1926–1967), Monk is remembered as one of the most influentialfigures in modern jazz.
The music Monk left behind remains as some ofthe most innovative and unique material in all of music, jazz orotherwise.