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To honor his father’s legacy and support the efforts of education, T.S. His piano is currently on its way to the National Museum of African-American History & Culture in Washington, D.C. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: While the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. Monk was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly-percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. Monk’s 1944 composition “Round Midnight” is the most-recorded jazz standard composed by a jazz musician. is the second most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than a thousand pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70. Even today, his influence is everywhere.” Musicīorn in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Thelonious Monk Jr. Some people are put here to deliver a message, and he dared to be different which resulted in moving an entire genre forward. He had great karma, and his ideology transcended his music. His harmonics were unique, and he brought about major changes in the world of jazz.
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He was a classically-trained pianist deeply immersed in music tradition who was influenced by Jelly Roll Morton, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. I will make more in the next seven days than he did in that entire year.” “He was not overly impressed with himself and has been described as ‘very unpretentious.’ His best year financially was 1964 when he made $45,000. For the next five years, my father let me find my own way and finally invited me to join his band.” The senior Monk was not primarily motivated by monetary reward, according to his son. He immediately made two phone calls-which was usual for him to make consecutive phone calls: one to Art Blakey, who gave me my first drum set, and one to Max Roach, from whom I took lessons.
#THELONIOUS MONK FAMILY PROFESSIONAL#
“When I was 15, I told him I wanted to be a professional drummer. He never pressured me to be a musician and once told me ‘You don’t have to be like me. “My dad was greatly respected by other musicians and was a gathering point. Monk remembers the constant stream of famous musicians that came to visit the apartment: Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, just to name a few. He never gave any reason why he did it, but it was a ritual with him, and he did it every time…I mean every time I ever watched him.” Guidance Whenever he left the house, I watched my father spin on the star and then bang his ring on the pipe. Outside of the door in this ground-floor apartment, there was a steam pipe and in the hallway, embedded in the floor-a mosaic of a star.
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“We lived at 243 West 63rd Street in New York City. Monk III (photo by Jean-Francois Laberine Ĭourtesy International Jazz Productions) Neighborhood It was returned in perfect condition, but my father said the vibrations in the car had changed, and he never drove it again.” T.S. In 1956, he brought a brand-new black-and-white Buick and named it the ‘Piebald Beetle.’ He drove it for about two or three months, and then it was stolen. When he was home, he would sometimes sit and watch them for hours. He was also crazy about Laurel & Hardy movies. He and my mother would play for hours on end. “He loved to play Yahtzee, a board game with dice. Even though I was a kid, he’d never let me win.” Dad would take me to the pool hall and just run the table. Coltrane considered my father his mentor and as such, just kept playing because that’s what Thelonious wanted to do. Once he played 60 consecutive games of ping pong with John Coltrane, winning 59 of them. He was really good at ping pong and pool.
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“My father enjoyed being athletic and played basketball until he was 35 years old.