Pianist Thelonious Monk was one of the fathers of modern jazz

WHEN a music critic said on show that jazz great Thelonious Monk’s style involved playing “the wrong notes”, Monk got wind of it. He called up the radio station and said “The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.”

US jazz pianist Thelonious Monk performs during a concert at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1969. Picture: AFP

WHEN a music expert said on a radio show that jazz great Thelonious Monk’s style involved playing “the wrong notes”, Monk got wind of it. He called up the radio station and said “The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.”

Although, to the untuned ear, his compositions sound like they are full of dissonant notes. But Monk knew exactly the right “wrong” notes to play to bring his tunes to life. He knew the rules of music and sought to break almost everyone, becoming one of the progenitors of bebop, or modern jazz. According to him, he was playing exactly what he wanted to play and it was up to the listener to come along for the wild ride. “I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public want, you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you are doing. Even if it does take them 15, 20 years.”

After he developed his own distinctive style in the 1930s and ’40s it didn’t take the jazz world long to appreciate his music and has long been acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century.

Jazz musician Thelonious Monk performs at Minton's Playhouse, New York, in September 1947.

Thelonius Sphere Monk was born a century ago today on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the second of three children to Thelonious Monk Sr and wife Barbara. The family later moved to Manhattan, where

He took to music early and began to teach himself piano when he was only six, learning how to read music by watching his older sister practise, before starting formal lessons at age 11.

Monk also showed a lively intellect and was sent to Stuyvesant High School for the gifted in New York, but his interests lay elsewhere other than academia. By 13 he had won so many competitions at the Apollo Theater he was barred from entering again. So he began performing at places around New York, dropping out of school at 17 to pursue a music career.

Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk performs at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, in June 1963.

Jazz musician Thelonious Monk at Mascot Airport in 1965.

Looking for work wherever he could, even playing as an organist with a touring evangelist, he came to the attention of the jazz world in 1941 when he took a job as house pianist at Minton’s Playhouse in New York. Founded by sax player Henry Minton in 1938, the club was a place where musicians could take part in jam sessions, free of harassment from the musician’s union, who banned people from playing any unpaid performance, because Hinton was an influential union member himself.

Monk made significant contributions to an emerging form of jazz known as bebop. This highly energetic style named after the sounds of equally energetic scat singers, used more sophisticated harmonies and rhythms than traditional jazz. Monk’s creative genius was his ability to string melodic lines that went in unexpected directions. Sounding discordant at times with strange harmonic intervals (the distance on the scale between two notes played together), Monk’s pieces flouted convention, but sounded so right.

He and other musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker jammed and performed, pushing the limits of jazz, revitalising the art form and sending it in a new creative direction.

While it was Monk’s live performances that dazzled audiences with his gift for improvisation, he began recording some of his music in 1944 as a member of Coleman Hawkin’s quartet. In 1947 he married Nellie Smith and formed his own sextet, recording five albums with Blue Note, a label synonymous with bebop.

Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and his wife Nellie arrive at Sydney Airport in 1971.

Thelonious Monk in 1972.

Jazz musician Thelonious Monk.

Although well known and respected by his peers, Monk was still little known and, in the ’50s, was involved in collaborations with Miles Davis and other artists. He also recorded two albums of jazz standards, to broaden his profile. However, he soon returned to his signature style, literally calling his own tune with the album Brilliant Corners, considered one of his greatest.

Toward the end of the ’50s his reputation grew beyond the jazz world, cemented by tours of the US and Europe. But while touring in 1958 he was beaten by a police officer for not
co-operating when questioned. Although drugs were found in his car, a court ruled that he had been illegally detained and the search of the car was not legal.

More popular than ever, he was signed to Columbia in 1962. He made tours to Australia in the ’60s and ’70s but withdrew from performing in the late ’70s. Unlike many other jazz greats who died destitute or lost control of the rights to their music, Monk created his own music publishing company and vested the rights in his children, who still hold those rights.

When he died in 1982 he was hailed as one of the jazz greats.

Originally published as Pianist Thelonious Monk was one of the fathers of modern jazz