Thelonious Monk

I love Thelonious Monk. I love his compositions, I love his bands, I love his playing, and I love stories about him. (And thanks to my work on the Jazz Loft Project I have gotten a chance to hear some pretty amazing stories about him.) And most of all, I love playing his music. (One of the few recordings I like of me playing piano is playing "Friday the 13th" with Alexi's band live at Fat Cat.) Of the (only) two solos I took on my own senior recital, one of them was on "Bemsha Swing."

Thelonious Monk wasn't the first jazz pianist I became obsessed with -- it was Oscar Peterson. But I don't play like Oscar, and I never tried to play with Oscar. Monk, though, I started to emulate.

I was introduced to Monk by some of my NEC Prep teachers. (Oh, I'm sure I played "Blue Monk" before then, but just as another blues with a simple head -- which, while it may be that on the surface, the person who taught me it originally failed to show me the importance of playing it not like a regular blues, but like a Monk blues -- a distinction I preach, and try to practice, though my version of not practicing it is making other blues sound like Monk and not treating Monk like other blues...)

The first Monk tune I really got into was "Friday the 13th." Jeremy Udden, my ensemble coach at NEC Prep my sophomore year of high school, brought it in -- along with 4 or 5 other Monk charts -- and I was instantly addicted to the simple 8-measure progression and the rubs. Sure, I'd already owned multiple Monk albums and had started to play some of his other charts in school -- namely some of the blues charts, and "In Walked Bud," though I was trying to play it as I would a standard, not a Monk piece -- but I didn't start to understand Monk until "Friday the 13th."

That simple 8-bar tune taught me what I consider the essence(s) of Monk: Eccentricity, followed (very closely) by humor, deceptive simplicity (that is to say it sounds simple but isn't), and rhythm. (Of course melody and harmony are important, but I think Monk's harmony is part of his eccentricity, and his melody -- well, I can't begin to touch the amazingness that is "'Round Midnight." But for the complexity of "'Round Midnight," there's the simplicity of "Raise Four.")

I've never been a physically gifted pianist -- I have no chops to speak of, and it isn't for lack of trying. But listening to Thelonious Monk and becoming obsessed with "Friday the 13th," "Bemsha Swing," "Green Chimneys," "Raise Four," "In Walked Bud," "I Mean You," "Straight, No Chaser," "Well You Needn't," and others -- some well, and some, not so much -- taught me how to be a decent pianist without having to be a physically gifted one.

And I learned that it's okay to be eccentric.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

And for your reading pleasure: Monk's advice to Steve Lacey. Enjoy!