Brilliant Corners: Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk was an absolute game changer in the society of jazz music. His exciting style often seemed erratic to the untrained ear, and caused some resentment of Monk in earlier years, due to how difficult he was to perform with. One of his songs, Brilliant Corners, was never actually fully recorded, it was spliced together from multiple takes, despite the band playing a four hour session with 25 takes. Despite how challenging is songs were to play, and how hard it was for the main stream to warm up to his music, Monk rose to jazz stardom and would ultimately alter the future of jazz music. Thelonious Monk was born on October 10th, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina before his family relocated to Manhattan when he was five. The move to Manhattan was crucial in Monk’s development as a musician. One of the largest influences in Monk’s careen, James P. Johnson, lived in the same community as him and the two developed a relationship. Music was all around the neighborhood on West 63rd street where Thelonious grew up, and Monk started to play the piano around the age of six. Monk primarily taught himself how to play the music he loved, and started to find work for himself in his late teens. This eventually led to him becoming a regular, and eventually the house pianist, at the nightclub,

Monk left a profound impact on the jazz community, he played with an absolute star packed lineup of other musicians, and changed a the perspective of how piano could truly be played. He may have been considered hard to play with or a little quirky, but he is an absolute jazz icon, as can be showcased by the Thelonious Monk institute of jazz. I think he sums himself up nicely with this quote; “There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others” - Thelonious