Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original [Hardcover]

I've read the Priestley and Santoro biographies of Charles Mingus and loved them both for their detail. I had tried in vain to find an equivalent biography of Thelonious Monk, then this book appeared.

No need to say much: this book tells the story of Thelonious's life beginning with his immediate ancestors. Everything's here and, if you want to know who he gigged with and when, or who he recorded with and when, this is the book for you. You'll also find a good account of his family life and enough anecdotes to give a rounded picture of Thelonious Monk as a person.

I would say this book is an unqualified success. If you love Thelonious Monk like I do, I don't think you'll be able to fault this book.

Well done the author!

Monk made his music a springboard into a form of personal expression few had ever imagined possible. The former Julliard student was a stand-out in the hot-house environment of New York's 1950s jazz scene, not only for his angular compositions but for his uninhibited performance. His music seems almost mathematical; he was sincerely interested in reaching an audience, and released uncompromising albums even as the idea of popular music itself was changing. (On February 28, 1964, Monk was featured in a "Time" cover story, and suddenly his was the face of jazz for a majority of Americans who found the music mysterious and almost beyond comprehension -- the Beatles had appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on February 9, three weeks earlier.)

Kelley's book is an entertaining and intensely personal look at how life and art intersect. Nellie Monk is interviewed extensively and Kelley shows her as a central character to her increasingly insular husband, lovingly keeping Thelonious away from distraction or being taken advantage of by managers and booking agents. In his later life, as Monk inexplicably gives up performance and composing altogether -- it's uncertain if this was due to an illness that still remains undiagnosed -- Nellie seems a force of nature herself for having been a lifelong companion to the puzzling nature of Monk's genius.

Monk's compositions have titles describing the familiar ("BooBoo's Birthday," "'Round Midnight") and the oblique ("Epistrophy," "Rhythm-a-ning"). Fans who read this fine biography should have their CD collection handy. Kelley does a great service by demonstrating that the force of creativity itself may, ultimately, be beyond knowing, but Monk's music is fortunately always there for those with an ear to discover for themselves.

This tremendous, necessary biography of not only a genius of jazz, but one of the greatest, most original musicians of the twentieth century, fills a gap by
telling us the real story of a man who has for far too long been thought of, even at times by his fans, as a kind of musical idiot savant, an eccentric, `difficult` modernist whose work must be approached with either caution or a doctorate in atonal music - none of which is, or ought to be, the case.
Thelonious Sphere Monk (arguably the most perfect name I`ve ever come across, especially for a jazz musician) was a funny, articulate, thoughtful, gnomic, compassionate, forthright, idiosyncratic man, who loved his wife and family, paid his dues over years in the clubs & jazz joints of the US, had a healthy respect for jazz tradition, and played his instrument with an accuracy of intent, a sculptor`s precision and a feeling for melody and structure too often overlooked by those who wish to claim Monk as an off the wall jazz weirdo.
Although he played with Coltrane, Miles, and others who later took jazz down some mean streets into some dark, edgy neighbourhoods, Monk never went the way of free jazz, sheets of sound, jazz rock or anything faddish. He was steeped in a melodic tradition, and loved `the old songs`, quite a few of which he played and recorded on his (thankfully) many albums. His own compositions could be jagged, intricate, questing, almost tortuous, or they could be tender, playful, romantic. He also composed the immortal `Round Midnight, a one-in-a-thousand number covered by everyone from Miles Davis to Robert Wyatt.
Some of the best passages in this lengthy homage to a much misunderstood man are direct quotes from Monk, some of which are zen-like in their directness and candour, others plain hilarious. I love the story of the time he was listening to a guest `expert` on a radio show saying how Monk created extraordinary music in spite of "playing the wrong notes on the piano". So a perturbed Monk dialled the station and left a message to tell the guy on the air, "The piano ain`t got no wrong notes." I`ve got a lot of Monk on disc, and I`ve never once heard him play a `wrong` note, just a lot of unexpected ones. In fact, he seems to play the spaces between the notes half the time, but wrong ones, never.
Then there`s the story - and this made me laugh out loud - of Monk leaving a gathering to walk a few blocks and just gaze up at the moon (he did a lot of standing and gazing at stuff) so a friend goes looking for him, finds him at last, asks him "Are you lost?" Monk replies, "No, I`m here." Pure zen!
This is often a painful, deeply sad book. Monk was seemingly bipolar, would go into catatonic states, and ended his life as pretty much a recluse, though still close to his beloved family. He played or recorded nothing in the last few years and died in 1982 at the frustratingly young age of 64. How sad I was at his passing, and how I miss him.
Kelley`s marvellous, exhaustive, clear-eyed, loving biography sent me straight (no chaser) back to the music, which I heard with new ears. I`d have given much to have seen Monk live, at the Five Spot perhaps, or the Village Vanguard, sounding out a stately intro to one of his standards (and I do mean HIS standards, for that is now what they are) before Charlie Rouse or Johnny Griffin comes in on sax, and maybe Monk rises from his piano stool to do his little dance to stretch his legs or to simply give his sideman some air.
There`s a whole world here in this beautiful book, I`ve just tried to give a flavour, a hint of what awaits the Monk acolyte. Much is intolerably moving (Monk was, lest we forget, a black man born into a too often racist country) and much is enlightening, especially about the music, and the life of an American jazz musician in the middle of the last century.
This is a book I`ve waited for, a book too many will not read, just as too many will never really hear Monk`s music. Too bad. We have both - let`s not waste them.
The late, lamented Captain Beefheart tells the tale of a club that had taken delivery of a brand new piano, and invited Monk to be the first to play it, to `test it out`. Monk arrives at the club (late, no doubt, as he tended to `live by his own time`) and sits down at the piano. He plays one single note, gets up, walks out of the club.
"But", said Beefheart, "it was the right note!"
Monk played nothing but right notes.