Thelonious

So atm, I've been reading a fair bit of music lit that I picked up while on a trip to the US, including an amazing biography of legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk by Robin D.G. Kelley. D.G Kelley is a professor of History and AMerican Studies at the University of Southern California - and he basically sets the record straight on who Monk was both as an artist and a human being - a loving family man, a loyal friend and one of America's greatest composers and improvisers.



 The book is great because it is an EXHAUSTIVELY researched bio of Thelonious Monk (cobbled together with interviews from publications at the time, interviews with family members and recordings of Monk in the studio or at home with his beloved wife Nellie - they had a tape recorder that was often on to record new compositions and sounds of domestic life). It is intertwined with a wider commentary and exploration on wider social and contextual issues of the time.

Kelley gives an insight into the civil rights movements, the underground jazz scene, the ill-treatment of mental illness at the time, and the socio cultural issues that some black people were both victims of and transcendent over during Monk's life time. Don't let the talk of history put you off though, it's elegantly (to take the blurb from the back of the book) written (very humorous and witty and compassionate) and there's a massive focus on the music and Monk's personal life - about a man  so in love with music and his wife that he'd get up in the middle of the bandstand and start dancing, about a man who wouldn't sleep for days while composing his magnum opus and a generous mentor who influenced figures like Sonny Rollins and Bud Powell and a guy who played a show for teenagers and then took them out for ice-creams afterwards. Life also wasn't easy for Monk, he was beset by a lack of recognition, mental illness, personal and financial troubles, but what is extraordinary was how he continued to make amazing music and give his time for others even when everything became difficult.

Another thing I loved was the cool anecdotes peppered throughout the book written about figures like saxophonist John Coltrane, Monk's clashes with trumpeter Miles Davis, drummer Art Blakey... reads like a who's-who of jazz really!

 I'm about halfway through, but it's a MUST read if you're a fan of Thelonious Monk (but you've probably already read it) - and if you're not, you'll become a fan after reading it because you'll see his music in a completely new light.