"Thelonious, Thelonious...
"...Sphere. Born 1918. Question mark."
"U.S. jazz pianist and composer."
It appears you're famous, Thelonious.
That's what that means?
Yeah. They only list all the popes in here and presidents.
-If you're famous, they put your name in.... -In this book.
I'm famous. Ain't that a bitch?
Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina in 1917.
Moved to New York City in 1922 with his mother and family.
They settled in the West Sixties, in a neighborhood called San Juan Hill.
The pianist, James P. Johnson, lived there...
...and Eubie Blake's musical, Shuffle Along, opened in a local theatre.
The streets of San Juan Hill were filled with music.
The sounds of the singers, the piano players and the big bands...
...drifted from home radios and blended with sidewalk gospel music.
Monk began playing piano without formal training. Later, he took lessons...
...and studied music theory at the Juilliard School of Music.
But his real teachers...
...were the master jazzmen of his time.
Fats Waller...
...Art Tatum and Duke Ellington.
At 17, he toured the United States with a gospel group.
Monk returned to New York and became the house piano player at Minton's...
...the scene of a revolution in music.
There, with Charlie Parker...
...and Dizzy Gillespie, Monk joined the revolution.
It was called bebop.
Bebop got a lot of attention...
...but Monk's unique contribution was largely unrecognized.
He was known by very few.
One who knew was the great saxophonist...
...Coleman Hawkins.
In 1944, Hawkins hired him, and Monk made his first record.
By that time, Monk had already...
...composed many of his major works.
He wrote many more...
...and the language of jazz was changed forever.
"Bebop", that's a strange word sometimes, too.
He was a musician.
And when the music changed, they just called it bebop.
Thelonious was like a founder.
He laid down the foundation.
He was the piano player.
A lot of his compositions are classics now.
He saw himself as modern. He liked to use the word "modern".
"A modern jazz player". Blacks who listened to that music...
...saw an expression of independence...
...and pride and strength. Thelonious Monk just represented that.
The earliest example of a Black revolution...
...a Black uprising in a sense, was in music...
...was in the bebop period...
...where the musicians didn't try to please an audience...
...but played their music, their way. It was a real independent expression.
Here's what I gathered: That his music at the time...
...was unorthodox.
It wasn't popular.
His records really weren't selling.
He was more an underground figure.
He was also a man about whom...
...stories about unreliability were circulating.
Live television is the scariest medium of all...
...because it's millions of people.
If you're going to act silly or not show up...
...it's going to be a glaring omission.
I just remember being very nervous.
He sat down and he played, and I was aware...
...of a real professional. What's there to be nervous about? He's there.
I remember though, on the way back, he was a little pissed off...
...at Count Basie. What did he say?
He said Count Basie kept looking at him...
...while he was playing.
He was at the piano and that somehow bothered him.
He said, "Next time he plays, I'm going to look at him."
To be employed in New York you needed a police card or cabaret card.
If I wanted to be a musician...
...I'd have to go to the police, put my fingerprints down, and get my card.
That card would be in my possession until such time as I would commit a crime.
Then that card would be removed.
He had lost his.
His friend, Bud Powell, was leaving town...
...and asked him to drive with him to the airport.
They made a stop...
...and Bud Powell got out.
Got back in with some drugs.
So, the cops saw, whatever they had in their hands, flying out the window.
"Who threw it out? Thelonious Monk."
And so he was arrested and convicted and got, I think, 90 days.
He said he never used. He was not guilty at that time.
The police in the '50s, maybe it started even earlier...
...their favorite targets seemed to be jazz musicians.
There were some cities that were outright unfriendly.
And I think that bothered him. He seemed to rather stay in New York.
It was during that period, in the process of getting his card back...
...that I found this little bar, on Third Avenue called the Five Spot.
And he was going to appear there for five, six months...
...as long as the crowds were coming in. And we did that.
The response was staggering.
The pressure's been building all these years...
...and suddenly all that stuff comes out.
And that's what you felt, that's how he played.
He was just great.
Whoever came loved what they heard.
I felt Thelonious was vindicated...
...because all this time he had been an artist...
...that had never had his due, in terms of recognition.
And here was the beginning of that changing.
There were phone calls for engagements. We were now in the lucky position to say:
"We don't go out of town right now."
While before this engagement, we would have considered anything.
I do that on the street a lot.
If someone else do that, they'd put him in a straitjacket.
they'd say, "Oh, that's Thelonious Monk. He's crazy."
Thank you.
The applause comes anyway.
Hello, guys.
How you doing there?
I was here in this studio once before.
I thought you'd never been here before.
That was a good year.
How you doing, man?
What's that? You got a new hat?
Yeah, this was given to me in Poland.
Poland?
That's the name of this hat.
Hey, Larry.
Is Charlie Rouse here? Everybody's here? Where's big Ben?
-I don't know. -I know. Right here.
You guys came on time! Hell, everyone's here, only a half hour late.
Baby! Hold it! I can see Christmas present.
-How are you doing? -Okay.
you're looking fatter.
Play that again.
He always will be on time. I made a bet.
Oh, man! Let me see the glasses. you're jiving me!
-I like it. -The glasses!
Where can I get another pair like it?
I wanna get a pair.
Now, I can see.
-Has he got anything in them? -No.
You mean, is it invisible? l"ve got invisible glasses on.
These are just sketches, right?
I write down four bars or something.
If you get four bars done, you know, you....
I haven't seen you in four months?
Since the Vanguard.
That's right.
Time flies.
I'm getting older. you're getting younger.
It's good of you to say that, too. I'm hearing it now.
Heard you before you said it.
Let's see some free-form things today. That's an idea.
You mean, like...
...Dixieland?
No, not at all, we play it in different keys.
I want it to be as easy as possible so people can dig it. Then it'll be good.
A lot of my songs are like that.
If It's easy, the melody and the time, then it'll be all ready.
Now Let's really do one. We're all set in.
Let's do one.
We were just running the piece over. Why did you stop us?
Now that's very soft.
Where were we at?
Where were we at before we were so rudely interrupted?
We were at the second bar.
One or two, however you feel.
We'd start out and we'd do a take.
Usually we'd take the first take, sometimes the second, but never the third.
He'd say, "Once you play it the first time..."
"...that's the way the feeling and everything is."
"And after that, you start going downhill."
So, It's more like a challenge when you do that. You know...
...that you got to play it correctly the first or second take, or that's it.
He would take it anyhow. If you mess up, well that's it.
That's your problem.
You have to hear that all the rest of your life.
Stand by, please.
Did you get all of that?
What's that?
I'd like to hear how that sounds.
Let's take one, then we'll play it back for you.
Why nobody just don't wanna do what I ask them to do?
I asked to play the song first before we play that other jive.
All right, just keep rehearsing and we'll tape it.
I want to hear how it sounds.
You rehearse every time you play on the instrument.
You should know that, a saxophone player.
They won't do what I ask.
I don't think he taped that one, though.
Yes, he did. He said he was going to tape it.
I said we were going to make one, and you wanted to rehearse it, so I didn't tape it.
I didn't say anything.
I didn't say shit. I didn't say nothing.
So, could we hear what it sounds like?
We didn't record it!
Stand by, please.
Someone named Barry Farrell exacted a promise from the Time people...
...to do a cover on Thelonious Monk.
When I first heard what was happening, I didn't believe it.
The first meeting...
...with Barry was in the evening.
I forgot the month.
It was the first meeting. "Hello, I'm Barry. I'm doing the cover on Thelonious Monk."
"Okay, I'm your cover subject."
And on the way down, I noticed the beginning...
...of a period of strange behavior.
Just the timing was.... A couple of times a year that would occur.
And I noticed that, and then I was terrified.
If that was spotted...
...in the room, that cover would be blown.
So I went up with him.
It was just Thelonious Monk, Barry Farrell, and myself, in this dark Radio City office.
Barry said, "I'd like you to listen to 'Round Midnight. What do you think of it?"
And it just got going. And I was watching Thelonious Monk.
And his behavior became progressively....
It wasn't obvious yet.
It was, to me, obvious that it was going to get bad.
And I didn't know how long it would take.
I was just so paranoid about someone spotting something.
I remember he got up and stared out the window a little bit.
But apparently it wasn't spotted.
By the time he got downstairs with me...
...he was very withdrawn. He was already off somewhere.
Things that people would do to him...
...he would just internalize them...
...and they would manifest themselves in tremendous fits...
...of depression and euphoria.
A very schizophrenic type thing. And when this would happen...
...on certain occasions, we had to hospitalize him.
He would generally...
...close up.
Introvert. And then...
...he would get excited.
And he may...
...like I say, pace for four days. Something like that.
And then eventually he would get exhausted. So it was....
It's hard to say how it moved.
It was very complex. He was a very complex individual.
Ready to go!
-It's getting closer. -Ain't it?
We've gotta get ready.
I got something I want to tell you.
I guess they started somewhere in the mid-'50s...
...but they didn't....
I'm not sure the first time Thelonious spent any time in the hospital for them.
I don't think that happened....
I don't recall that happening until the '60s. 'Til the...
...mid to late '60s.
But my mom...
...told me she saw the signs of it much, much earlier.
Most people tend to run from it. Nellie never allowed us to do that.
I would have to say that my tendency, as a kid, was to run from it.
I didn't know what the hell was going on.
It's a startling thing when you look your father in the eye...
...and you know that he doesn't exactly know who you are.
And you tend to not want to face that at all.
You want to act like that doesn't.... This is not happening.
But my mother clearly...
...let me know that it was our responsibility to look out for this guy...
...the way he looked out for us every minute he was able to.
She was trusting. She was a terrific friend. A friend.
Total trust and dependence.
She was operated on at that time and was in the hospital, and he was very...
...very tense. Really very tense and unsettled.
He was working on that tune at that time.
I don't know...
...if he would have made the strides he made, musically...
...had there not been a Nellie for him, to cover the other bases...
...and have it all wrapped in love at the very same time.
And she actually understood, before anyone else around him...
...back when they were teenagers. She understood...
...what it would take to allow this to grow.
Nellie was like his right hand. She would...
...tell him what to do....
"You should wear this today, Thelonious," or whatever.
And she looked after him, you know, food and everything.
They were very, very close together.
I think he would have been lost without her, out on the road.
We had sold them a tour based on an octet and...
...the complication with it was that Monk had the music.
And before we could figure out what to do musically...
...we had to get a hold of this.
And Monk never gave it to us until we were on the plane.
I remember going up to first class...
...and Nellie and Thelonious were there.
And I said, "I need the music, Thelonious. I just have to have it.
"The guys have to see what's going on. I'll make sure it gets back to you."
We brought it back and immediately it was distributed to the musicians.
All four or five of us were sitting there copying the music all the way to London.
We were going to arrive in London and play the same evening.
It had to be a little bit nerve-racking for him. How this was going to happen.
Given his druthers, this man would have stayed in New York. Period.
Hold it.
He must have thought that he'd got off on the wrong foot...
...and that he was never going to get back.
I know he was nervous about the number of people we had.
He must have thought there weren't enough horns.
But the way the charts were written...
...unless someone worked on these they wouldn't sound right.
Do you play a chorus in front or does the band?
-You follow me? -Band starts.
-The band goes first? -Yeah.
What do you play, Ben, four or eight bars?
I don't know. I really don't know.
Does Ben play?
I'll play the introduction, then he'll play an introduction...
...and then Rouse will play it with us, about two times, which is a chorus...
...and then the band come in.
Ready?
Tenor saxophone!
-I smell trouble. -Say, Ray?
You follow, he follows Rouse.
-You want me to follow Rouse? -That's the way it goes.
That isn't exactly what you said. Some of the horns are missing.
You play....
Do it on the half. Not the time. The half.
The second half....
How we gonna do it three times?
Do it the same way, then go up the second time we do it.
-Go up and hold the note? -Yeah, six times.
Six times?
Well, It's going to be lower...
...rhythm and then high.
-The whole thing? -16 bars?
The whole 16 bars every time.
I dig you.
Going slowly but surely.
Any preference on your part for a solo order, or did we do it all right?
Charles first?
Yeah, he plays all right. Let's see how it goes, okay?
Where you see a nice place for you to go in, then pick it.
You pick your spot where you think It's nice to go in and blow.
Johnny Griffin! Johnny Griffin!
Here"s a little chaser for you.
I remember the audience went crazy. I mean, they were just stunned.
And I think he was literally stunned himself...
...by the audience's reaction to this.
And he suddenly discovered, "Yeah, it's all working."
"It's not going to be the disaster."
How much money we got?
We would like to have your signature, if you would.
For Grace and Joyce.
"Always...
"...Thelonious Monk."
Thank you very, very much.
-Thank you very much. -you're welcome.
When they went on the first world tour, they went from Geneva to Australia.
When they got to Australia...
...Customs opened their bags and found all these empty Coke bottles.
Empty Coke bottles. They paid overweight.
The people were furious: "What are you doing with these empty bottles?"
"We"ve got to take them back," was Nellie's answer.
How are you?
Is Gracie with you?
Gracie with you? Nellie?
Oh, yeah. SHe's over there.
You never stay home alone?
You like to travel with Mr. Thelonious?
Oh, yes.
-You know me. -I know you, yes.
And I know him. And he won't be late if....
Where did you buy those crazy pants?
Copenhagen. Danish ones.
I bought them in Denmark.
-Sassy. Sex and satisfaction. -That's why he bought them.
-Some bad motherfuckers. -You mean the stripes?
I think he wants us to get out of here.
The trip is over!
Don't cry in the hallway.
We're straight ahead, right?
Do you have chicken livers and rice or something like that?
Chicken?
Chicken liver.
I don't think we have that, sir.
Just a second, please.
Chicken salad we have here, sir.
Chicken salad or chicken?
How about just liver?
Liver? Ja.
-Do you have anything that goes with it? -Veal liver.
Veal liver with potatoes...
...French fried potatoes or mashed potatoes?
-Mashed potatoes. -With mashed potatoes.
-He has your food. -Hello, sir.
you're going to get up now, aren't you?
You didn't bring no ice.
What is more important in your work?
Playing the piano or composing?
-I do both. -Both.
Mr. Monk, do you always wear different hats and caps in your concerts?
Do they have an influence in your music?
No.
Good question.
Maybe they do. I don't know.
Do you think the piano has enough keys? 88? Or do you want more or less?
It's hard work to play those 88.
I was in the room, Nellie was in the room, backstage.
And a reporter came and asked him what kind of music he liked. And Thelonious:
"I like all kinds of music." A pretty good, legitimate answer.
And then the reporter said, "Do you like country music?"
Thelonious didn't answer.
And the reporter said, "Well, do you? Do you like country music?"
Thelonious looked at me and said, "I think the fellow"s hard of hearing."
Solid!
I dig it.
All month I'll be busy.
I'll be going everywhere. I don't know what I'll be doing here.
-How are you feeling? -All right.
you're looking your best tonight.
This is an old suit.
Still pretty good for an old suit.
I don't wear none of my new shit.
I can tell It's brand-new.
-Hey, I got a present for you. -A million dollars?
Not quite.
Here.
-It's a marker. -To sign autographs?
I don't never carry no pen with me.
It's for autographing.
I don't like to carry a pen on me.
You will. That's the point.
That's why I haven't got a pen.
-Saves energy. -But you'll like this pen.
It's the first time they've made it.
Is that jive or for real? What's it, silver?
It's silver, but try the marker.
It's like a Magic Marker.
Well, that's not much of a page.
You see?
-Well, shut my mouth wide open! -Here's a proper piece of paper.
Proper piece of paper.
So I'll do it etiquettely.
-Can you read that? -A beautiful message.
Guess someone can decipher that for you and tell you what it means.
it'll upset you.
You'll flip.
I mean, flip for real, you know?
Isn't that right?
The royal family came to your...
...grandfather's...
...and crying the blues, you know, and all that begging...
...and he laid the bread on so he could beat Napoleon. Right?
And threw in the Suez Canal.
That changed the world.
-Ain't nobody's fault 'round here. -But that was over here.
I'm your press agent. I'll tell people who you are.
We don't make distinctions.
SHe's a billionaire. She's a Rothschild.
She wanted to meet him in the worst way.
She needed him a lot. She told me that.
She'd said that she would feel a source of strength.
She had an interesting background.
She was with the Free French Army and flew Lancaster bombers...
...and was in de Gaulle's resistance.
Kind of a rebel.
But Nellie never saw, in that relationship, a threat.
Sometimes Nellie may have felt relieved that she came around...
...when Thelonious was a little difficult.
She was splitting duties. I don't think they had that plan, it just turned into that.
See, you can tell on that one. I think he had a problem.
That's your land, as you put it, very jauntily, I thought.
I didn't meet Thelonious until 1954.
I flew to Paris and got there just in time...
...for his first overseas concert.
And I went backstage afterwards...
...and Mary Lou Williams introduced us. That's how I met him.
But we hung out for the rest of the time he was there, and we had a ball.
He was there about a week.
Then I came back to New York a couple of months later.
I was then living in the Stanhope.
And, you know, like all musicians, he used to come up there.
But after Bird died there, they threw me out.
Did you do the matinee?
Too much.
So then I went to the Bolivar.
And that's when I got my piano. Thelonious and I got it together.
That's where he wrote Brilliant Corners and Bolivar Ba-lues, I believe.
At night we'd go out around the clubs.
And then all the musicians would come back with us to the Bolivar...
...and we'd have fantastic jam sessions until 8:00 or 9:00 the next morning.
So, of course, eventually...
...that caused trouble, and I was thrown out of there.
Then we decided it was time I should get a house of my own.
And I got this house...
...which was known at first, by Thelonious, as "Catville."
Hi, everybody. I'm very glad to be here today.
I would like to play a little tune I just composed...
...not so long ago, entitled Pannonica.
It was named after...
...this beautiful lady here.
I think her father gave her that name...
...after a butterfly...
...that he tried to catch. I don't think he caught the butterfly.
Anyway, here's the number I composed, named after her, Pannonica.
Merci beaucoup, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you, Thelonious Monk.
What are the chords?
D-flat.
Yeah, D-flat.
G?
D-flat.
D-flat. Then you want E-flat. E-flat what? D-flat what?
D-flat-7.
Then, I'm talking about right here.
G-minor-7 to D-flat.
G-minor-7.
To what? To D-flat?
That's two beats apiece?
And then, next bar.
The next half of the bar is...
...G-flat-7.
-G-flat-7. -D-flat-7.
-G-flat. -G-flat.
That'll be Boo Boo's Birthday, take three.
What do you want me to hit? Because I just wrote....
You want me to hit the top note? I just wrote this here.
What do you want me to hit here?
You want me to hit C?
Or are my notes contrary? I'm saying, which one of the top notes....
Hit any of them. Any of those notes you want to.
Any notes I want to?
Any of them that's here. You can hit any one of them.
I can hit D and C then?
I hit the top note right here.
I was here. I hit this note here. C.
But right here, there's two notes. It's either C-sharp or C-natural.
-Yeah, either one of them. -Either one of those.
F-sharp-7, B-7 to C-flat.
A-flat, A-flat, G.
Now, hold on to scale there.
Then an A-flat-7.
And he ends in D-flat.
Sure, he does something like that. He does something like....
It's very hard to say anything about him because he was....
The time I was with him, just prior to leaving him, he was right into it.
I never thought that he would stop all of a sudden and not play.
But something happened, something clicked in him.
He didn't want to play anymore.
I know 'cause I asked him a couple times. He never gave me any reason.
He said, "I don't feel like playing anymore."
Whatever ailed him just overwhelmed him, and he just withdrew.
I don't think it was an anger about music.
It had nothing to do with music.
It had to do with him, and his energy, and his outlook, and his life.
That had nothing to do with music.
Like, "I'm not playing. I haven't got it anymore." I know it wasn't that.
I'm not in his brain, but I know that couldn't have been what it was.
We were driving home from New York.
This was the first year he lived here. 1972.
And he suddenly turned to me and said, "I am very seriously ill."
This is the only thing Thelonious has ever been heard to say about being ill.
He never said it again.
Thelonious died...
...on February 1 7, 1982.
He had a cerebral hemorrhage, and he was in a coma for 12 days.
And he passed away very quietly...
...in his sleep. And the last person with him was Nellie.
Ripped by Francky ;o)