Happy 100th Birthday, Thelonious Monk!

[klook]

And thanks for everything.

[malaise]

1. Oh Yes!

Thelonious Monk was a genius.
How my father loved him.

His most appropriate piece for the Dotard's tenure

[G_j]

2. Happy Birthday!

[SummerSnow]

3. Love Monk's Dream

[Brother Buzz]

4. 'Round Midnight, baby

Damn, you'd be hard pressed to find a Jazz musician that didn't cover one of the best jazz standards out there

[malaise]

5. A classic

[malaise]

9. The comments are almost as good as the music

[Demit]

6. so many great tunes, but I love "Nutty"

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Straight, No Chaser

[Codeine]

8. Well You Needn't.

[malaise]

10. A Lovely Combo

[smirkymonkey]

11. Happy Birthday - Love Thelonious Monk

[klook]

13. Monk dances during Charlie Rouse's tenor solo

and then rushes back to the piano just in the nick of time!

I love this guy so much.

[ellie]

14. LOVE!

Happy Birthday to Thelonious Monk!

[klook]

15. T. Monk's Advice

as transcribed by soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy:

[malaise]

16. A friend sent this last night

https://www.thedailybeast.com/thelonious-monk-will-change-your-life-even-from-the-grave
<snip>
Thelonious Monk and I were in the same room at the same time just once, in the summer of 1968, at the Winston-Salem, North Carolina Coliseum, the first stop on a 21-city tour for a package show of jazz artists that included Cannonball Adderley, Gary Burton, Dionne Warwick, and Monk. Wes Montgomery was supposed to have played, but he died several days before.

Monk was 50. I was 16. He was the reason I went to that concert. I’m not sure how I heard of him. Everyone I knew listened to rock or soul. There was a country station that no one I knew listened to. The local college station played classical. No stations played jazz. Not even the one African-American radio station played anything but rhythm and blues.

I go into all this detail, because I want to at least sketch out a cultural territory that no longer exists. Today, wherever you may live, if you can get online, you can hear about almost any kind of music, and what you don’t hear, your friends do. Today everyone is on the same page, or the page they want to be on, from Boise to Berlin to Bangkok.

In the ’60s, you worked alone. In our city of 130,000 people, if you were curious about anything that wasn’t utterly mainstream, you were on your own. I knew people who were knowledgeable about rock but no one who knew more than I did about, say, jazz or classical or country, and I knew next to nothing.

[klook]

18. Beautiful piece - thanks.

The memories of a landscape where musical explorers were largely isolated rings true for me. Almost all of my early jazz education was haphazard, the result of an accidental encounter or a serendipitous discovery. (And I owe a huge debt of thanks to some unknown staff member at my local public library who ordered jazz albums, unusual classical records, and other wonderful treasures that I got to check out.)

I discovered Thelonious Monk thanks to a college friend who played me "Live at Town Hall," with the incredible Hall Overton arrangements and performances by Donald Byrd, Phil Woods, and other greats. Wow - I felt like pure energy had been poured into my veins every time I listened to this record. Still do!!

[malaise]

19. Yes that was a beautiful piece your thread

is lovely - and very important.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. My Childhood Piano Hero

Made me switch from classical (which i didn't like playing anyway, even as a 10 year old) to a jazz guy.

My dad was a "cool jazz" guy. (Getz, Brubeck, Farlow, Randolph, et al). He had this one album of Dizzy's band (live) and he never played it because he didn't care for it. I pulled it out and played it on my record player, and wham! "Dad, i want to play this kind of piano!"

Changed teachers a week or two later and never looked back.