Thelonious Monk (1 Viewer)

[jamny]

I have a hard time understanding why I like him so much. When he hits these off notes, my shoulders perk up. I flinch.

So bad that it's good. I don't know jazz, but I know art and I liken him to Pollock. Destroy convention! It doesn't need to make sense.

Link

 

[Man of Constant Sorrow]

I wish I could answer, but I'm like you. I just know that the Monk Man's music moves me.

 

[wikkidpissah]

I have a hard time understanding why I like him so much. When he hits these off notes, my shoulders perk up. I flinch.

So bad that it's good. I don't know jazz, but I know art and I liken him to Pollock. Destroy convention! It doesn't need to make sense.

Link

seeing him play was the difference for me. my dad had Monk records, i been a bebop fan all my life and, therefore, aware that monk was the form's best songwriter and owned a few of his albums. somehow, i never saw him play tho and really didn't get it til youtube came along and i watched videos of him. he's jamming with himself, competing against himself, arguing with himself, making love to himself, praying to himself. it's one of the most extraordinary things i've ever seen and his recordings are so much more meaningful to me now that i know that. he's a great great.

 

[mr. furley]

he's a ####### musical genius

 

[Ilov80s]

Hell of a band he had with him

 

[jamny]

seeing him play was the difference for me. my dad had Monk records, i been a bebop fan all my life and, therefore, aware that monk was the form's best songwriter and owned a few of his albums. somehow, i never saw him play tho and really didn't get it til youtube came along and i watched videos of him. he's jamming with himself, competing against himself, arguing with himself, making love to himself, praying to himself. it's one of the most extraordinary things i've ever seen and his recordings are so much more meaningful to me now that i know that. he's a great great.

There's an obvious struggle there that everyone can see. Like he's fighting against everyone around him. Not conforming.

 

[wikkidpissah]

There's an obvious struggle there that everyone can see. Like he's fighting against everyone around him. Not conforming.

but he also has moments of extreme ecstacy and apparently was known to bliss himself right off the stage, sometimes coming back, sometimes not. can't cite them, but there are clips of him dancing away from the piano wearing that coolie hat of his and you can almost hear the song that's still going on in his head

 

[jamny]

Not to try and psychoanalyze, but he probably was somewhat autistic, right?

 

[wikkidpissah]

Not to try and psychoanalyze, but he probably was somewhat autistic, right?

all there is is psychology - it's our loss to 'not' it. we are all autistic to some degree, on a spectrum just as we are with polarity & hormonality. but i'm guessing that, finding humans as generally inadequate as they are - especially to someone of a subclass - Monk built his own heaven, hell & purgatory within and made of life his own Dante's dance between the three