Thelonius Monk 'The Elephant on the Keyboard'

According to the poet and music critic Phillip Larkin, he considered Thelonius Monk nothing more than "the elephant on the keyboard." Yet, while this a very strong statement to make, Thelonius Monk clearly caught the attention of some people...considering he is the second most recorded Jazz composer of all time, right after Duke Ellington. So some might say in this instance, Philip Larkin was dead wrong.

Thelonius Monk was born on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. He started playing the piano around age 6, and ended up dropping out of High School before he graduated. Electing instead, to tour and play the organ for an evangelist group. He eventually found his way to Minton's Playhouse in New York, from which his career blossomed.

Minton's was a club that was well known for it's improvisation and is considered one of the birth places of bebop. Monk had finally found a place where his strange, almost scattered technique could be accepted and had the necessary atmosphere to grow and polish into the fine tuned, yet strangely illusive sound that we know and love today. Mary Lou Williams, a famous Jazz singer, is noted saying that many people would come and listen to Monk play, and would frantically write down what he was doing, in an attempt to steal much of the style that Monk was attempting to make his own.

But Monk had a different side to him when it came to his personal life. He always seemed to be very strange at times, and from the few videos I've seen of him, I can understand why. He did not seem to communicate like other people, being hard to read, but still making sense, much like his music. For years, many doctors tried to diagnose him with various diseases, and it may have ended up being one of these diagnoses that caused him to suffer so much, as the drugs prescribed to him could have caused brain damage.

The later years in his life were not much better. In the last decade of his life, he rarely performed publicly. And while on tour with "The Giants of Jazz," he reportedly only said two words. Later, it was mentioned that it may have been because of issues he had with musician Art Blakey, that caused him to say so little. Eventually, Monk moved in with longtime friend Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who helped care for him in the last 6 years of his life. He reportedly didn't even play the piano during this time. He died on February 17, 1982, of a stroke.

Yet, the legacy that Monk left behind was one that has shaped music forever. Still, one does have to start to ponder the irony about artists and musicians; their suffering, is our gain.

Sources:
1. Spencer, C. (2010). In the steps of Larkin. The Spectator, Sept. 2010, London.
2. Giddins, Gary & Scott DeVeaux. Jazz (2009). New York: W.W. Norton & Co, ISBN 978-0-393-06861-0.
3. Gabbard, Krin (Autumn, 1999). "Evidence: Monk as Documentary Subject". Black Music Research Journal (Center for Black Music Research — Columbia College