[markl]

I got this from Netflix.com. I'm just beginning my foray into jazz, and in an attempt to further educate myself I got this DVD. I had no idea that Monk was very mentally ill. Most of the footage of Monk dates from the 60's and features his backing band that made the album of the same name.

Throughout the film, he is very incoherent and it's virtually impossible to understand his mumbling. His poor band struggles to understand what he wants them to do. He seems almost autistic in a way, living in his own world. What music, though! So interesting how genius and mental illness are so often correlated.

I know there are a lot of fans on this board, so you might want to check this out if you can find it. Not a lot of information about the man, but plenty of footage of him playing. It's almost as if so much of his brain is focused on the music, that the rest suffers. He often stands up on stage and closes his eyes and just spins around, oblivious to the audience and lost in the sound. Quite a character.


markl

 

[coolvij]

Wow - I had no idea...............thanx for the rec.......

Truly amazing......genius and eccentricity seem to walk hand in hand.

Wait. I'm kinda eccentric.

Genius? Me?

No.......

Just eccentric.............ah well........

Thx again.

 

[MacDEF]

Thanks for the tip, Markl! I just added it to my Netflix queue

 

[jmpsmash]

thanks for the rec markl,

i recently started exploring jazz as well, and Monk and Miles has been great tour guides.

 

[SEK]

Yeah, Monk was spacey at times, but he could also be very verbally coherent and to the point. It's not that he was out of touch as much as he was into something else. When he was dancing, he was really grooving to the music.
Monk kept in contact with his muse and took care of business, while others often took care of the business end of things, if you get my meaning.

Conceptually, in music, there is nobody deeper. Children can dig Monk, and you can grow through a lifetime, always hearing more in his music. And many musicians know how difficult it is to play Monk's music properly.

I've also been inspired by John Coltrane for most of my life. What is not often mentioned is the key role that Monk played in Trane's development. The effect of Trane's hiatus from Miles in 1957, when Trane played with Monk, is evident if you compare his playing with Miles before he left to play with Monk with his playing and rapid development after he returned.

jmpsmash, you do have some excellent tour guides. Monk, Miles, Mingus, Trane,...You listen to the giants, the innovators, and then your interests can deepen and expand, guided by the musicians that played with them as well, and through them you encounter more musicians and more musical possibilities...

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

The effect of Trane's hiatus from Miles in 1957, when Trane played with Monk, is evident if you compare his playing with Miles before he left to play with Monk with his playing and rapid development after he returned.

There's also the fact that he was kicked out of Miles' group because of his drug habit, and when he came back he was allegedly clean, so you're comparing him when he was really out of it to when he came back sober, determined to learn and grow.

 

[markl]

According to the documentary, Monk had to quit performing in the early 70s due to his illness. There's also an interview with his son which goes into some detail about his illness. His son claims that at times his father couldn't really even recognize him. He certainly wasn't "dangerous" or psychotic though. Either way, it hardly takes away from his accomplishments or his art.


markl

 

[acidtripwow]

That DVD sounds interesting. I think the best music comes from a deranged mind, but that's just me. It's like those bands that come out with their first CD and it's great because they're so angry and screwed up. Then they sober up and their later stuff just sucks. I do have 2 DVDs of Miles Davis but I found them rather boring and uninspired. Miles almost looks like he's bored on stage and during the interviews. Just my observations.

 

[SEK]

Monk was definitely not deranged. He was always an individual, perhaps a bit eccentric. It is another issue when someone is going through some sort of dementia. When my father inlaw had alzheimers during the last few years of his life, it was sad and painful to deal with, for him and for the people who loved him.

Miles often had a detached stage manner, for which he was well known in his time. But that did not usually correlate with his intensity, inspiration, and commitment or the quality of his music. Perhaps there is other music in the broad range of music and recordings that Miles made in his long career that might appeal to you more than what you have by him.

Quote:

he was kicked out of Miles' group because of his drug habit, and when he came back he was allegedly clean, so you're comparing him when he was really out of it to when he came back sober, determined to learn and grow.

Trane called Monk a harmonic architect of the highest order; he helped school and fuel Coltrane's harmonic and rhythmic innovations which Coltrane would furiously develop the rest of his life. Miles always provided a place where Trane and his other valued sidemen could develop and grow. Miles was a facilitator of the highest order for gifted innovators. Trane did leave Miles with a heavy habit, and he returned to Miles clean, with a new spirituality and commitment to grow (read the liners by Trane written in 1957 that are included in A Love Supreme), and with an intense education from a master of harmony, space, and time, Thelonious Monk.

 

[chadbang]

I had no idea, Markl. That's amazing. Confirms my belief Monk is a genius. I loved him from the first off-beat chord he hit and I went: "What?" Then smiled. He makes jazz a pleasantly crazed experience. Like listening to a surreallist poet with the freewheeling sensibilities of a child artist and the humor of someone who knows his field so well he can make inside jokes only colleagues will get. Love that Monk and glad to here he was out on his own limb. I had a professor in college and a physics freshman on my hall you would have sworn were mentally-challenged - just in their own world and amazing scholars. I'm in my own world too, but no sign of genius in sight... waiting...

 

[chadbang]

By the way, atavar (what DOES that mean?) of the month to MacDef. I love that!

 

[jude]

markl,

Thanks for the info on the DVD. Straight, No Chaser is one of my favorite albums. I'd like to check out this DVD.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

By the way, atavar (what DOES that mean?) of the month to MacDef. I love that!

Thx

Some robot toy from the 1950s... I just like that he's wearing headphones.

 

[Tuberoller]

Sek,I love your insights,your comments suggest an understanding of our music.
I hate it when people say that Monk was deranged and this may have possibly influenced his music.He was mentally ill and he was a life long drug abuser and of course it influenced his music.Monk's genious is obvious to even non Jazz fans and his influence extends far beyond Jazz.It is not a stretch to say that Monk influenced Miles and Coltrane and that the music that they all made suggests that they all had a common vision.Read Miles' autobiography,and Coltrane's liner notes,listen to Monk's incoherent rambling and the quest to awaken people is shared by them all.If you believe that Monk influenced Miles and Trane' and you think about all the artists and people in general that were and still are inspired by them,Monk's effect on the rendering of modern music is staggering.

When each new medium(CD,SACD,LP)is introduced or reintroduced I find myself discovering Monk all over again.Every time I see someone discover Monk for the first time I feel joy at thinking of how many times in a lifetime this discovery will repeat itself.

I have been all over the world as a Soldier and have seen and heard Monk's music played as far away as South Korea and Saudi Arabia.I have seen album covers of Monk's displayed proudly in Turkey.Our music is our ambassador.It is played and loved all over the world, even where we ourselves are hated and I firmly believe Monk is one of music's most important figures.

 

[SEK]

Tuberoller, thanks for your comments. I've not been able to travel outside the U.S.A. very much, though I've stayed very much in touch with people and places around the planet. I appreciate your observations (and your service).

"Jazz" is one of the U.S.A.'s great cultural exports. It's become a world music, even though it's quite marginalized in the country of its origin, where most of its greatest practitioners still reside. In many parts of Europe, Japan, and elsewhere, figures such as Ellington, Parker, Coltrane, Billy Harper,..., Monk are discussed in virtually the same sentence as Bach, Beethoven, Villa Lobos, Takemitsu, etc.

A friend who recently came back from Finnland told me about seeing recordings by Mingus, Coltrane, Miles, Ellington, and other American masters in the music collection of a rural public library there.

Too bad the discussion of jazz often goes right to an artist's drug use or other personal frailties. They are sometimes things the musician/composer had to deal with, but we fortunately have their music to deal with. I don't hear Mile's or Bird's heroin or booze; I hear their music, which communicates or doesn't communicate to listeners, for reasons quite apart from what went on during its creation. Even if drugs, alcohol, Jesus, Allah, french fries, poverty, or wealth were part of the artists milieu or lifestyle, you have to deal with the music. The beauty, emotions, and sensations come from the music.

The rest is occaisionally sociology, psychology, or history, more often gossip and weird marketing, all of which surely have their varied uses...