ABOUT THE MUSIC

Monk Solo - 1969 Studio Recording In Paris

Jacques Muyal has given us a great gift with the release of these two wonderful films of Thelonious Monk from 1969 (Monk in Paris & Monk Solo – Laser Swing Productions DVD). They provide a rare glimpse of the man and the artist in the twilight of his career, proving that at fifty-two Monk was capable of making more music with just a piano than all the popular rock and pop bands combined. Too bad the executives at Columbia, his record label at the time, couldn’t hear it. Before Monk and his quartet took off for Europe in the fall of 1969, Columbia spent the previous year trying to market Monk for a new generation of rockers with the release of his Underground LP in 1968 and Monk’s Blues several months later. Underground was undeniably Monk in its purest form, but the packaging and marketing of the LP was nothing less than a corporate label attempting to increase sales by presenting vintage wine as pop. And to do so, they developed a marketing strategy intended to reach the young. “Now, in 1968,” read the press release, “with rock music and psychedelia capturing the imagination of young America, Thelonious Monk has once again become an underground hero, this time as an oracle of the new underground.” Columbia producer, Teo Macero, went even further with the next LP, Monk’s Blues, hiring arranger Oliver Nelson to create a big band that infused Monk’s sound with a little rock and a little R&B. The results were disastrous, ultimately trying Monk’s patience and persuading Columbia to drop one of their most famous artists since he joined the label seven years earlier.

It was a hard pill to swallow. Since Thelonious Monk got his union card in 1939, he had stuck to his guns, playing his music his way, suffering setback after setback. He lost his cabaret card in 1948 for a year, and again in 1951, this time for six years. And without a cabaret card, he could not work in venues that served alcohol. He did not record as a leader until he was 30 years old (1947), and even then his records did not sell. The truth is, Monk was forty before he started to make a decent living, after his cabaret card was restored and he began a long engagement at the Five Spot Café in Manhattan’s East Village. His moment in the sun, if you will, lasted less than a decade, and by the time he makes what would be his eighth trip to Europe, he was tired, ill, and frustrated, and enthusiasm among the critics had begun to wane. And to make matters worse, Monk’s outstanding rhythm section – drummer Ben Riley and bassist Larry Gales – had quit, leaving him with saxophonist Charlie Rouse and whomever was available. By the time he headed off to Europe in October of 1969, Monk hired a young bassist named Nate “Lloyd” Hygelund, a Berklee School of Music student who looked more like a member of a rock band, and a skinny seventeen-year-old kid named Austin “Paris” Wright. Wright had an unorthodox way of holding his sticks and he sometimes swayed side-to-side when he played, but the boy could swing and that’s what Monk was looking for.

Before hitting Paris in December, the band played in London (which included a lengthy engagement at Ronnie Scott’s), Berlin (where Monk played brilliant solo piano as part of a 70th birthday tribute to Duke Ellington), Cologne, and parts of Italy. Thus by the time we see them perform on this film recorded at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the band had begun to really congeal as a group. It marked a triumphant return for Monk, for when he performed on the same stage in 1954 – his first trip to Paris – he played for a rather hostile audience. As Henri Renaud put it, Monk was “too avant-garde”. Now, fifteen years later, he received a reception worthy of a star, and the entire concert was televised. No surprise that Monk and Rouse played well together ; indeed, Rouse appeared so comfortable with the music he sometimes appeared vacant. Monk, too, also seemed to be on auto-pilot, though he never stopped swinging !

By Robin D. G. Kelley,
author of Thelonious Monk:
The Life and Times of an American Original (2009)