The following is an interview between jazz journalist Morgan Enos and drummer, composer and bandleader T.S. Monk – Thelonious Sphere Monk III, the son of Monk himself. A new archival album, Monk Live in Paris, 1967, Volume One, featuring his longstanding quartet with tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales, and drummer Ben Riley, was released 24 April via the Thelonious Monk Estate’s Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment. Links to purchase the album and to T.S. Monk’s website can be found at the end of this article.
By 1967, Thelonious Monk had already recorded the compositions that defined his repertoire. He took that material on the road with a steady quartet and played it night after night. He reset tempos and phrasing in performance, working the same tunes under changing conditions each night.
The studio did not capture that process consistently. Audiences recorded him. Broadcasts, board tapes, and portable recorders documented concerts across the United States and Europe, then circulated among collectors for decades outside the catalogue.
In the 1990s, T.S. Monk and a family member entered those networks, located the recordings, and brought them back under the estate’s control. They assembled a few hundred hours of live Monk from board tapes, broadcasts, and audience recordings made inside clubs and halls.
Monk Live in Paris, 1967, Volume One opens the series with the 3 November 1967 Salle Pleyel concert. Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales, and Ben Riley anchor the quartet; Johnny Griffin, Phil Woods, Jimmy Cleveland, Ray Copeland, and Clark Terry join them. Several led their own bands, and all chose to travel with Monk. The recording documents how Monk plays from the piano inside that larger group.
UK Jazz News: What should fans know about the trove of live Monk that’s waiting to get out there?
T.S. Monk: You know, it’s a bunch of things, when you’re initially told as a little child that your father is unique and a genius and this and that, and then you become a jazz musician yourself and begin to realise what people were talking about.
I had come to the conclusion quite a few years ago, frankly, that if you’re a Monk fan – I call them Monkians – you’ve probably got everything he’s done so-called legitimately for Riverside, Columbia, Prestige, Blue Note, those recordings.
One of the really unusual things about Monk, which goes to the issue of his genius, is that he sustained a very healthy recording career, recording the same tunes multiple times. The reason he was able to do that, in my estimation, is because unlike almost every other jazz musician that ever lived, he was able to reimagine his improvisational efforts differently all the time.
He never really ever played anything exactly the same way twice, and that’s what people loved about Monk. That’s why people could listen to Monk play ‘Blue Monk’ 100 times and ‘‘Round Midnight’ 50,000 times. Every time he would play it, he would play it differently.
So, if you’re a real Monkian and you’ve got all of that legitimate stuff, what really becomes important is new performances. Thelonious’ music and personality were unique, so people used to record him live all the time, because they wanted to take Monk home with them.
In the 1990s, myself and a family member started infiltrating chat rooms of these collectors, and they had all these crazy bootleg recordings. It’s just unbelievable, the number of bootlegs there are for Thelonious Monk out there.
My relative eventually started talking in these chat rooms, and he broached the idea: “You people really love Thelonious Monk and you hate the record labels, but the greatest thing you could do if you really love Monk is to actually give those recordings back to Thelonious Monk.” They said, “That sounds like a great idea.”
So, I ended up with a couple of hundred hours of live recordings from all over the world, from all over the country – big concerts and little concerts, some little recorders in some Japanese guy’s pocket and other recordings off the board.
UKJN: Drill into the music on Monk Live in Paris, 1967.
TSM: Yeah, that’s Johnny Griffin, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Jimmy Cleveland, Charlie Rouse – all these great soloists on it. But dig what Monk is playing behind these cats. This is some other stuff! If you don’t rehearse that Monk music, that music will kick your ass.
One of the amazing things about Monk’s music is that it’s very, very easy on the ear. I think that sort of confused the critics in the early days, because Monk seemed in the music scene, for lack of a better term in their world, somewhat juvenile or elementary.
But when you actually have to play it – I mean, if you want to expose somebody as a bullshitter on their instrument, give them a couple of Monk tunes and see what happens.
UKJN: What values do you hope emerging musicians take away from your father’s music?
TSM: I think, beyond the technicalities, ideologically: believe in yourself. Be yourself. It’s the hardest thing for human beings to do. We’re all brought up with the lesson, Don’t rock the boat. Very early on: Everybody’s wearing a T-shirt. I better put on a goddamn T-shirt. Everybody’s wearing sneakers. I better wear some sneakers today.
The hardest thing in the world is, when everybody’s wearing a T-shirt, I don’t feel like wearing a T-shirt. I’m not going to wear a goddamn T-shirt. That is, to me, the object lesson of Thelonious Monk.
I’ll tell you something that I only recently had the courage to say. When I was 15 or 16, I remember very clearly saying to myself – and I was ashamed of this for years – Why doesn’t Daddy play like all those other guys? Man, if he just played like all those other guys, life would be so easy. He could make a lot of money and have no problems. Why is he so different? Why does he have to do his own thing?
It wasn’t until I was about 19 and had really started playing my drums that I realised why he didn’t sound like all those other guys, and it was because he had a measure of courage. A measure of f***ing courage that was so extraordinary and so rarefied.
It is the stuff that Einstein and Ptolemy and so many genii over the centuries have had. It takes courage to be yourself, and most of us – 99.9% of us – don’t have that courage. Monk had that courage. That’s the takeaway, man.