I Give You, Jazz Superstar, Thelonious Monk!

Have you ever listened to “Blue Monk” with its offbeat rhythms, yet delicate melodies? Harmonies jump in and out, and yet, smooth transitions and unorthodox stresses and pauses complete this song. The piano mostly dominates, with many sustained uses of the pedal. How did Thelonious Monk generate such talent? How was he inspired? Where did he learn to play so (amazingly)?

            Well, Thelonious Monk should give some of his talent’s credit to San Juan Hill. His mother, Barbara Monk fostered three children and moved to New York City to find better opportunities for her and her kids. With help from Barbara’s cousin, Louise Bryant, Thelonious would soon live in San Juan Hill, starting at a very young age. But, the living conditions there were described as “humans hives, honeycombed with little rooms with human beings. Bedrooms open into air shafts that admit no fresh breezes, only foul air carrying too often the germs of disease” (Kelley, 16). However, San Juan Hill was as known for a different reason, “its reputation for violence” (Kelley, 16). Mostly consisted of Southern and Caribbean Blacks across the avenues, San Juan Hill was a battleground between them, “Irish, Italians, and Germans that lived along the avenues” (Kelley, 18). Thelonious Monk remembers, “Then, besides fighting the ofays, you had to fight each other. You go in the next block and you’re in another country” (Kelley, 19).

Yet, San Juan Hill was a center of amalgamations of cultures because of its high diversity. People spoke “English with a Carolina twang and a West Indian lilt” (Kelley, 18). Despite the violence, music was played everywhere, “in the hallways, in the streets. Every household had an instrument” (Kelley, 20). Thelonious Monk improved his ear through the community. Simon Wolf was a classically trained pianist and violinist who studied “Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, and Mozart extensively” (Kelley, 26). Being exceptionally trained, Wolf “was amazed by how quickly Thelonious mastered many pieces not to mention his curiosity about the piano’s mechanics and his wide range of musical interests” (Kelley, 26). But, Thelonious’s jazz talent came from Alberta Simmons, who “made a living playing ragtime and stride piano in tiny speakeasies” (Kelley, 27). Simmons taught Thelonious the mechanics to stride piano techniques and helped “develop his left hand.” Even the church was another important source of music. There “he became steeped in the sacred music of the black Baptist tradition” (Kelley, 27). Probably the most influential was his mother, who “did not believe in corporal punishment and encouraged her children to be free-spirited, vocal, and opinionated, albeit respectful. Barbara did what she could to introduce her children to the city’s rich culture” (Kelley, 22). And Thelonious Monk would be surrounded by Caribbean music such as the rumba, son, habanera, and the tango.

But what separates Thelonious Monk from others is not so much his exposure to the many different types of music, but his unorthodox ways to break social norms. Monk used his musical art to create a new community through dissonance in music. He was known for his race rebel persona because he adopted a younger generation of Blacks and whites who were rebelling against the structures of American society and conformity (Lecture 2/28/13). It was just not simply a Black community anymore. But race was still a problem throughout American society, where racial discrimination overpowered especially during his arrests in Delaware in 1958 with Nica, a Jewish woman whose family died in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, Thelonious Monk will forever be cherished, “embodying a vision of a new community of artistic souls, rebels against middle class conformity” (Lecture 2/28/13).