Monk S Music

"Gabriel Solis's study of Thelonious Monk's legacy energizes an important development in jazz studies. Respectful of Monk and his musical heirs, Solis nevertheless offers insights on Monk myth-building by opposing jazz camps in which both moldy figs and avant-gardists claim him as their own. Moving beyond exploding these turf battles, Solis comes to deep realizations about jazz as a practice. This will become an often-cited work, even a transformative one."—Steven F. Pond, author of Head Hunters: The Making of Jazz's First Platinum Album (winner of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music's Woody Guthrie Prize)

-- First comprehensive study of Monk, one of the 20th century's most original and influential creative artists, available in the States. -- Thoroughly revised and beautifully redesigned for American readers, including fifty studio, performance and personal photographs. -- Lively and authoritative biographical section reveals the public as well as the private life of this pivotal figure. -- Analysis of Monk both as a pianist and composer, by an established jazz critic and musician. -- Up-to-date narrative discography gives detailed descriptions of all Monk recordings currently available on record and CD. Gives readers the story behind the music. -- Fifty carefully selected photographs documenting the modern jazz movement. -- Complete and current catalog of Monk material, including video as well as CDs and rare recordings. -- Glossary of key jazz terminology.

The first full biography of Thelonious Monk, written by a brilliant historian, with full access to the family's archives and with dozens of interviews.

(Artist Books). The music of Thelonious Monk is among the most requested of any jazz composer, but accurate lead sheets and sources have never been widely available until now. This folio has 70 of the master composer/pianist's most familiar pieces, as well as a number of obscure and unrecorded tunes, in easy-to-read versions. Includes counterlines and ensemble parts for many pieces, as well as bass-lines and piano voicings where applicable. Also includes a biography, a glossary, and a definitive discography of the compositions in the book. Titles include: Ask Me Now * Bemsha Swing * Blue Monk * Blue Sphere * Boo Boo's Birthday * Bright Mississippi * Brilliant Corners * Bye-Ya * Crepuscule With Nellie * Criss Cross * 52nd Street Theme * Functional * Gallop's Gallop * Hackensack * I Mean You * In Walked Bud * Jackie-ing * Let's Cool One * Little Rootie Tootie * Misterioso * Monk's Mood * Nutty * Off Minor * Pannonica * Played Twice * Rhythm-a-ning * 'Round Midnight * Ruby, My Dear * Straight No Chaser * Thelonious * Well You Needn't * and 39 more.

"Read this invigorating graphic narrative, then—quickly, before the spell breaks!—play one of Monk's records." —Saul Williams She is Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter, a free-spirited baroness of the Rothschild family. He is Thelonious Sphere Monk, a musical genius fighting against the whims of his troubled mind. Their enduring friendship begins in 1954 and ends only with Monk’s death in 1982. Set against the backdrop of New York during the heyday of jazz, Monk! explores the rare alchemy between two brilliant beings separated by an ocean of social status, race, and culture, but united by an infinite love of music. This breathtaking graphic novel by Youssef Daoudi beautifully captures the life of the “the high priest of bop” in spontaneous, evocative pen and ink that seems to make visible jazz itself.

In early 2005, an engineer at the Library of Congress accidentally discovered, in an unmarked box, the recording of Thelonious Monk's and John Coltrane's performance at a 1957 benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. Long considered one of the most important musical meetings in modern jazz, Monk's and Coltrane's work together during a scant few months in 1957 had, until this discovery, been thought to be almost entirely undocumented. In this book, Gabriel Solis provides an historical, cultural, and analytical study of this landmark recording, which was released by Blue Note records later in 2005. Taking a wide-ranging approach to the recording, Solis addresses issues of "liveness," jazz teaching and learning, enculturation, and historiography. Because nearly a half century passed between when the recording was made and its public release, it is a particularly interesting lens through which to view jazz both as a historical tradition and as a contemporary cultural form. Most importantly Solis accounts for the music itself. Offering in depth analytical discussions of each composition, as well as Monk's and Coltrane's improvisational performances he provides insight into Monk's impact on Coltrane as he developed his signature "sheets of sound" style, as well as into the influence of a strong side-man, like Coltrane, on Monk at his creative and professional peak. The first study of one of the most significant jazz releases of the twenty-first century, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall is essential reading for all jazz scholars, students, musicians, and fans.

Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) was one of jazz's greatest and most enigmatic figures. As a composer, pianist, and bandleader, Monk both extended the piano tradition known as Harlem stride and was at the center of modern jazz's creation during the 1940s, setting the stage for the experimentalism of the 1960s and '70s. This pathbreaking study combines cultural theory, biography, and musical analysis to shed new light on Monk's music and on the jazz canon itself. Gabriel Solis shows how the work of this stubbornly nonconformist composer emerged from the jazz world's fringes to find a central place in its canon. Solis reaches well beyond the usual life-and-times biography to address larger issues in jazz scholarship ethnography and the role of memory in history's construction. He considers how Monk's stature has grown, from the narrowly focused wing of the avant-garde in the 1960s and '70s to the present, where he is claimed as an influence by musicians of all kinds. He looks at the ways musical lineages are created in the jazz world and, in the process, addresses the question of how musicians use performance itself to maintain, interpret, and debate the history of the musical tradition we call jazz."