Happy Birthday Thelonious!

[Free For All]

Every day, as I learn more about music, I appreciate Monk more.

What a great way to spend the weekend, checking out your favorite and/or rediscovered Monk sides!

HBTM!

[7/4]

http://wkcr.org

[7/4]

[7/4]

[CJ Shearn]

happy birthday!

[WorldB3]

Every day, as I learn more about music, I appreciate Monk more.

What a great way to spend the weekend, checking out your favorite and/or rediscovered Monk sides!

HBTM!

I spent an hour today just playing Ask Me Now and Monks Mood on the piano. Then put on The Unique Thelonious Monk and Brilliant Corners.

Edited October 11, 2009 by WorldB3

[7/4]

I listened to quite a bit of the WKCR broadcast when it first came on and then some more while I was driving around today.

Thing is...I've been listening to a lot of Monk this year anywayz.

!

[Free For All]

I had the opportunity to hear Steve Wilson play the crap out of Ask Me Now tonight. Nice.

[WorldB3]

Its proably been posted before but it seems appropriate.

Monk's notes to Steve Lacy from his notebook.

You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

Edited October 11, 2009 by WorldB3

[7/4]

[7/4]

listening to Monk on WKCR again. They're playing him on Jazz Portraits until 7pm, EDST. http://wkcr.org

.

[AndrewHill]

Its proably been posted before but it seems appropriate.

Monk's notes to Steve Lacy from his notebook.

You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

That is awesome! Thanks for (re)posting. Absolutely love Monk's music and I never get tired of it, ever. HB Thelonious, you're truly one of a kind!

[jeffcrom]

Its proably been posted before but it seems appropriate.

Monk's notes to Steve Lacy from his notebook.

You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

Amazing! Where did you find this?

[Norm]

From NPR, in celebration of Monk's birthday:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2009...sc=fb&cc=fp

I've got Thelonious himself spinning right now.

[Norm]

By the way, anybody here see Monk live? I just read the entry for him at Wikipedia which suggested that he would get up in the middle of a performance and spin around in a dance like whirling dervish? Is this true? This just makes him all the more intriguing, as if his approach to composition and playing wasn't fascinating enough in itself.

[7/4]

By the way, anybody here see Monk live? I just read the entry for him at Wikipedia which suggested that he would get up in the middle of a performance and spin around in a dance like whirling dervish? Is this true? This just makes him all the more intriguing, as if his approach to composition and playing wasn't fascinating enough in itself.

I never saw him, but isn't there footage of him spinning in Straight, No Chaser? I haven't seen that film in years.

[Gheorghe]

I didn´t have the occasion to see him life, but saw quite a lot of video-material with him. that kind of little dance was just part of his music. If you watch him rite, it´s like the way he plays. I love everything he did.

[WorldB3]

Amazing! Where did you find this?

It was on some blogs this past spring, a friend sent me a pdf of it. I thought for sure it had been top posted here before and with three or four responses along the lines of I was there in the room with Monk when he wrote it and Steve showed me that at the club that night he played a gig with Monk.

Definitely worth a top post.

[jazzbo]

What would the jazz world be like if Thelonious had taken up the violin as his mother Barbara wished, or had learned to play the trumpet as he wanted to?

Edited October 13, 2009 by jazzbo

[paul secor]

Its proably been posted before but it seems appropriate.

Monk's notes to Steve Lacy from his notebook.

You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

Amazing! Where did you find this?

Does anyone know if this appears in the book, Steve Lacy: My Experience with the Soprano Sax? Has anyone here read that book?

[paul secor]

Its proably been posted before but it seems appropriate.

Monk's notes to Steve Lacy from his notebook.

You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

Amazing! Where did you find this?

Does anyone know if this appears in the book, Steve Lacy: My Experience with the Soprano Sax? Has anyone here read that book?

Did a search and found an answer to one of my questions. According to Marcello, it's to be found in Steve Lacy: Conversations (Duke U. Press) - edited by Jason Weiss. http://www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-3815-4

Edited October 13, 2009 by paul secor

[Chuck Nessa]

By the way, anybody here see Monk live? I just read the entry for him at Wikipedia which suggested that he would get up in the middle of a performance and spin around in a dance like whirling dervish? Is this true? This just makes him all the more intriguing, as if his approach to composition and playing wasn't fascinating enough in itself.

I saw him do the dance at the Plugged Nickel in 1967 or '68. I was sitting about 4 feet away and he stopped, facing me, and pulled up his zipper.

[jeffcrom]

Its proably been posted before but it seems appropriate.

Monk's notes to Steve Lacy from his notebook.

You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

Amazing! Where did you find this?

Does anyone know if this appears in the book, Steve Lacy: My Experience with the Soprano Sax? Has anyone here read that book?

Did a search and found an answer to one of my questions. According to Marcello, it's to be found in Steve Lacy: Conversations (Duke U. Press) - edited by Jason Weiss. http://www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-3815-4

Those pages do not appear in Conversations, unless there has been a new edition with additional material. Being the Lacy freak I am, I bought the book about five minutes after it came out. There are several similar documents in Lacy's handwriting included, which may account for the confusion, but I had never seen the Monk advice in Lacy's hand before.

Findings: My Experience With the Soprano Saxophone is not really a book you sit down and read - it's more of a workbook for saxophonists, although anyone interested in Lacy's music would get something out of it. It's got exercises, Lacy scores, solo transcriptions, and advice. It includes of of Book H of "Practitioners," his fiendishly difficult set of etudes for saxophone. I pull those out when I want a real technical challenge. The book is in French and English, and every saxophonist who is interested in going beyond "Cherokee" should have it, in my opinion.

By the way, the Monk list is not in that book, either.

Edited October 13, 2009 by jeffcrom

[medjuck]

By the way, anybody here see Monk live? I just read the entry for him at Wikipedia which suggested that he would get up in the middle of a performance and spin around in a dance like whirling dervish? Is this true? This just makes him all the more intriguing, as if his approach to composition and playing wasn't fascinating enough in itself.

I saw him do the dance at The Colonial in Toronto probably in the late '60s. By that time it had been written about that I sort of expected it and would have been disappointed if he hadn't.

[Norm]

By the way, anybody here see Monk live? I just read the entry for him at Wikipedia which suggested that he would get up in the middle of a performance and spin around in a dance like whirling dervish? Is this true? This just makes him all the more intriguing, as if his approach to composition and playing wasn't fascinating enough in itself.

I saw him do the dance at The Colonial in Toronto probably in the late '60s. By that time it had been written about that I sort of expected it and would have been disappointed if he hadn't.

Very Cool! Was he wearing any headgear? I thought I've seen some images of him donning one of those hats worn traditionally in the Ottoman Empire, called a "fez" I believe, that looks like an upside-down cup-of-soup bowl with tassels. It just seems like it would fit with that repertoire.

I'm going to have to check out the film mentioned by 7/4, if its still available. I've GOT to see footage of this!