Jazz Gods and Monsters

Author(s): Clifford Thompson

Source: The Threepenny Review, No. 105 (Spring, 2006), p. 23
Published by: Threepenny Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4385517
Accessed: 01-05-2017 17:19 UTC

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MUSIC
theoretically, technically. I would talk Finally, Coltrane-like the monster-
to Monk about musical problems, and exposed new facets of the man who
might be called his creator. Take
Jazz Gods and Monsters he would sit at the piano and show me
the answers just by playing them. I "Nutty," available on Thelonious
Monk with John Coltrane, from 1957
could watch him play and find out the
things I wanted to know. Also, I could Its roughly sixteen-bar theme is, for a
Clifford Thompson see a lot of things that I didn't know Monk tune, straightforward, even
about at all." Monk planted the seeds upbeat. Following the break, Coltrane
of the Coltrane we know today. In avoids the melody while following it
doing so, Monk allowed more of him- harmonically, ranging far afield, impro-
"[O]ne by one the various keys were touched which formed self to be discovered.
the mechanism of my vising, being;exploring the possibilities con-
chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled In a with
literature
onecourse I took in col-
thought, one concep-
tained in Monk's theme, but checking
tion, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed [my] lege, a soul...more, far
question arose as to more,
whether the will I periodically to change chords
back in
achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown
narrator of a novel we were reading according to its pattern-and then head
powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation."
was "really" the author. The professoroff again.
-Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
responded that the narrator is a cre- "Monk was one of the first to show
ation of the author, and the author me how to make two or three notes at
cannot create himself. Maybe not. Buta time on tenor...," Coltrane wrote in
HE FIGURE of the mad scientist cellar. When the owner asked where what is the self? For the average indi-Down Beat. "If everything goes right,
he'd been, "Monk looked at him as ifvidual, it is a quivering point betweenyou can get triads." (Shelley herself
has long been an object of fascina-
tion, largely because his creations from a great distance and answered the extremes of the person she wouldachieved a triad: in an extended section
appeal to the often unacknowledged with slow, calm dignity. 'I was walking like to be and the one she fears becom- in the middle of Frankenstein, the mon-
but powerful human attraction to the on the ceiling."' ing-with occasional excursions in ster tells his story to his creator, a story
odd, the misshapen, the seemingly Then there is his piano playing. Theeither direction. Fiction writers maycontained in the one Frankenstein him-
unnatural. The mad scientist has incar- New York Times columnist Frank Rich not be able to create themselves, but self tells Robert Walton, the novel's
nations in a broad array of fields;used in possibly the best single adjective to they can shed light on previously hid-frame narrator-a layering of three, the
jazz, he has elicited the "You call thatdescribe it: "splintery." Monk often den sides of themselves; they do so, inliterary equivalent of harmony.) There
music?" response in his guises as seemed, in playing the notes he intend- fact, with numbing frequency. In the are demonstrations of this technique,
Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and ed, to snag parts of others as well, mak- case of Shelley's 1816 novel, it is not and an early taste of what Coltrane
Cecil Taylor, among others. He first ing for a dissonant, spiky sound- the author but the protagonist who would achieve in the remaining decade
did so in the person of the pianist arguably
and the most recognizable in all of reveals a side of himself. Victor of his life, in his solo on Monk's
composer Thelonious Monk. jazz. Even so, Monk is probably best Frankenstein is a brooding, obsessive "Trinkle, Tinkle." Ira Gitler famously
Monk, who lived from 1917 to remembered for his creations, most of figure born and raised among good, described as "sheets of sound" what
1982, established himself on the music which were musical compositions. One loving, cheerful people; he feels Coltrane love manages to achieve here and
scene in the bebop era of the 1940s and of them, like the creation of Shelley's for them, which he professes, as well elsewhere,
as but that description, to me,
Victor Frankenstein, literature's proto-
'50s, in the company of Charlie Parker, other emotions, which he does misses
not. the three-dimensionality of
Coltrane's solos. A small handful of
the young Dizzy Gillespie, and the typical mad scientist, was a person-to When he is very young, his parents
younger Miles Davis; before he was the extent that one can create a person adopt a girl, Elizabeth, whom they
older tenor men, including Coleman
done, he would emerge as the most dis- who already breathes and walks. raise along with him and whom Hawkins
they and Ben Webster, achieved
tinctive of that group of revolutionar- Before 1957, John Coltrane (born hope he will one day marry. As a solidity of sound through the
such
ies, through the oddness of his perfor- nine years later than Monk, but dead young man Victor befriends the irre- strength of their tones, but Coltrane,
mance style and compositions. His by 1967) was known in jazz circles as a pressibly cheery Henry Clerval. whose And tone was actually thinner, creat-
works are not just odd, but oddness is a good but not world-changing tenor then Victor creates his monster. ed extra dimensions through his sheer
full partner with artistry in accounting saxophonist. He had played in bands Revolted when his creation comes to multitude of seemingly simultaneous
for the appeal of those immortal tunes. led by Dizzy Gillespie and others, and life, he flees. At first, touchingly, the notes, a sound that was everywhere at
"Straight No Chaser," "Brilliant he had become famous as part of the monster seeks a loving relationshiponce. Close your eyes during his solo
Corners," "Epistrophy," and others of group now remembered as Miles with humankind, but after fearfulon "Trinkle, Tinkle," and you can
Monk's best-known melodies are full Davis's first great quintet; among other humans reject and attack him, he turns imagine that a tornado has suddenly
of the unexpected, both in their rhyth- albums, that group had recorded four bitter and murderous. He finds Victor grown up amid Monk's piano, Wilbur
mic shifts and jerks and in the way pas- for the Prestige label in one long session and, in order to inflict upon his creator Ware's bass, and Shadow Wilson's
sages are accented; it was Monk's in 1956-Walkin', Relaxin', Steamin', the suffering he has felt, strangles to drums. That power would carry
genius to give such curiosities not only and Cookin'. Coltrane's work on those death those closest to the young scien- Coltrane through his reunion with
coherence but-to borrow the title of beautiful records is still recognizably tist. Victor is consumed by guilt- Miles Davis and through the work he
one of them-an ugly beauty. One of his, owing to his signature, raw-boned which, though he does not say so, is did in the 1960s in his own quartet,
his less-cited works, "Skippy," avail- tone; but those lyrical solos give no hint the guilt of having one's most terrible with the pianist McCoy Tyner, the
able on Thelonious Monk-Genius ofof what was to come. Between perfor- desires realized. Might not a man as drummer Elvin Jones, and the bassist
Modern Music, Volume 2, surprises memances, and sometimes during them, dark-natured as Frankenstein want Jimmy Garrison.
every time I hear it: its opening is a Coltrane-hardly alone among jazz inwardly to silence a friend as relent-Recordings of the Monk-Coltrane
rapid burst of piano notes that begins musicians, or even among Davis's band lessly sunny as Clerval? Might not collaborations
a are few, and some insist
in a high register before tumblingmembers-was letting heroin and alco- man rebel at the prospect of marryingthat what there is doesn't capture the
downward, righting itself, and scurry- hol get the better of him. Backstage one a woman who is more or less his sis- magic of the live performances at the
ing forward; the effect is a startlingnight in October 1956, the same month ter-and might he not, if only brieflyFive Spot. And so the 2005 discovery of
immediacy, as if an expected guest had that Walkin' and the rest were record- and secretly, entertain the idea of a tape of November 1957 Monk-
bypassed the doorbell and dived in ed, Davis got fed up and fired Coltrane, killing her on their wedding night, Coltrane shows at Carnegie Hall was
through your window. slapping and punching him in the before the marriage can be consum- met with particular enthusiasm.
Dance music this isn't-unless you process. A third man had wandered mated? The one thing about which Thelonious Monk Quartet with John
imitate the singular dances Monk innocently into this scene: Thelonious Victor feels no guilt is the pain he has Coltrane at Carnegie Hall does not, to
broke into when his sidemen took their Monk. Monk berated Davis and told caused his rejected creation to suffer; my ear, represent an achievement supe-
solos. In that and other ways, Monk Coltrane, as Davis recalled in his auto- but then, a person usually does not feel rior to the Monk-Coltrane records that
not only was the mad scientist butbiography, "Man, as much as you play guilty about evils he commits against existed before; but since those records
acted the part. Charlotte Zwerin's on saxophone, you don't have to take himself. For the monster is Victor: his are great and too few, more of the same
excellent 1989 documentary, Straightnothing like that; you can come and repressed self come to life. is a good thing. The nine tracks are
No Chaser, shows Monk wearing a play with me anytime." As Frankenstein's monster doggedly classic Monk compositions, including
scruffy goatee and a wide, wild variety In 1957 Coltrane did just that. He taught himself written and spoken lan- "Evidence," "Crepuscule with Nellie,"
of hats and-in idle moments-spin- spent a great deal of time in Monk's guage until his eloquence exceeded that and "Blue Monk." Backed by Shadow
ning in place. In his 1961 book The home, discussing musical ideas, andof most humans, Coltrane-beginning Wilson on drums and Ahmed Abdul-
Jazz Life, Nat Hentoff recalled going to played in a quartet with the pianist in 1957, the year of his collaboration Malik on bass, Monk contributes his
see Monk play in Coleman Hawkins's now-storied dates at the Five Spot, in with Monk worked to master the trademark key-banging, providing the
band at the Savoy one night in the mid- New York City. "Working with Monk tenor saxophone in a way no one ever framework for Coltrane's solos. The
1940s. Hentoff stayed until the club's brought me close to a musical architecthad; and just as Frankenstein's monster saxophonist alternately sprints and
owner closed up for the night; out on of the highest order," Coltrane wrote towered physically over men, Coltrane wails, exploring the territory Monk has
the sidewalk, the owner, remembering in Down Beat, as quoted in Carl came to stand head and shoulders claimed, the geography of that fertile
that he hadn't seen Monk leave, sent Woideck's 1998 book The John above other saxophonists (with the mind; not, like the monster, demon-
the bouncer back inside. The bouncer Coltrane Companion: Five Decades of possible exception of Sonny Rollins), strating the worst of his creator, but
couldn't find him. Then, sometime Commentary. "I felt I learned from creating music that other horn players shining a light on Monk's eccentric,
later, Monk emerged from the club's him in every way-through the senses, are still trying, and failing, to match. beautiful best. D

SPRING 2006 23

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