Summer 2007
My Patron Saint of Unlikely Heroes
I was six years old the first time my dad warned me right before he put
a record on. “This will probably be the best album you will ever hear,”
he said. The sounds that followed were the most cacophonous and
dissonant arrangements I ever heard. The saxophone squeals were not
only sharp and piercing, they were abrasive and percussive. On the
recording you could actually hear the organic passing of loose air over
a saturated reed. The snare hits were impossible to follow. It was
inconceivable that one man could strike so many drums in such condensed
periods of time utilizing only two arms and two legs. The bass lay low
in the recording and seemed to be the foundation to which the other
musicians adhered. The bass was a smooth walk and rarely had any swing
or double-time, but there was still something regal and stoic about the
way its rhythm held fast through such decadence.
The main feature, however, was the piano. Staccato punctuations defined
the heads and the solos were so riddled with spaces that the listener
was forced to reflect on what they had just heard before the next
sequence began. The notes hardly constituted a melody and theme was so
absent from compositions that it seemed the music operated completely
independent, or at least in defiance of any established key. There
wasn’t a live audience on the record, so no applauses interrupted the
spaces
between solos.
The music was hedonistically awkward and celebrated uneasiness. I had
heard a lot of jazz but I had never heard this. The music made demands
on the listener; the intervals forced uneasiness and dared him to make
sense of what was going on. The musicians played with overwhelming
confidence, yet appeared to inspire only confusion. Nothing fell on a
downbeat or an interval standard to Western music. To this day, Brilliant Corners, is still the
best album I have ever heard. This was Thelonious Monk.
Nearly two decades later, I am no closer to understanding how Monk’s
compositions work. Many jazz fans and musicians I have spoken with
detest everything about Monk. Nothing charming or sentimental is
apparent in his arrangements or originals, and as soon as he
establishes expectations or a comfort zone, he hits blue notes so
bastardizing that he changes the color of the song completely. Smooth
pockets and catchy quotes that jazz musicians almost joke with are
instead replaced in Monk’s performances with straight-fingered runs and
straight-faced plucks that leave nothing conventionally appealing in
the ensuing mess.
Thelonious Monk died four years before I was born. He was a man that
many surely knew. But I have never heard anyone in any interview claim
they understood him. Monk earned a reputation early on for being
unapologetically unreliable. By all accounts he was naturally
reclusive, and towards the end of his career undeniably mentally
unstable. Then one day, out the blue, while his career was doing fine
and his body still was strong, he quit music. Whenever pressed for an
explanation why as a revolutionary of jazz and founder of bebop, he was
able to just walk away, the only answer Monk is known to have given is,
“I just didn’t feel like playing anymore.”
I suppose I picked a strange hero.
My dad and my grandfather were both professional saxophone players.
They had their own bands and ran around playing big band, jazz and
classical music. When I lived with my parents, my dad was always
pulling out records saying, “You have to hear this,” or, “This record
is extremely important.”
To this day, when I go to visit my grandfather he gives me stacks of
old albums by people I would never hear anywhere else. The latest pile
consisted of Enzio Pinza, Maurice Chevalier, Xavier Cugat, Rosemary
Clooney and Jimmy Durante.
Now when I think back to growing up, I can’t contest how pivotal the
lifestyles of my favorite musicians were in my development: Bruce
Springsteen turned me into a Democrat, John Coltrane illustrated the
ill-effects of drugs better than any D.A.R.E class ever could, Robert
Johnson taught me making deals with the devil guarantees results much
quicker than praying, and Tom Waits put the first bottle of whiskey in
my hand and said, “Here, this will give you some chest hair.” But no
omniscient figure was as important to me as Thelonious Monk.
Monk taught me that what many people refer to as Social-Anxiety Disorder really just
means I don’t want to deal with
people all of the time. When Monk was going out of his mind,
really losing it, he relied solely on his wife Nellie to get him
dressed and fed. I suppose a lot of people find this aspect of Monk’s
life depressing, although I don’t know; I’ve only ever seen it as
romantic.
Finally and despairingly, Monk taught me the value of quitting. When
you’re done you’re done. I have always respected that. No matter how
many fans Monk amassed, or how adored he was by musicians and critics,
when Monk felt like leaving, he left. Monk’s career completely stemmed
from every aspect of defiance possible. It seemed only appropriate that
he should end on such a note.
However, quitting is a difficult art to perfect. Certainly quitting is
impossible to master until put into practice, and along the way it’s
unavoidable that a steadfast quitter will disappoint many. And Monk
helped me, for better or worse, never to worry about who I was letting
down: I have walked away from fantastic jobs with outstanding pay
simply because I wasn’t interested. I have been in relationships that
didn’t seem totally worth the effort, so I called it a day. I even
changed my majors and minors in college, three times, because of some
triviality. Out of context I would appear to be flakey, self-centered,
and unreliable, none of which I can really fully disagree with.
However, I had my reason and my reason was Monk.
Staring down the barrel of adulthood, I have never felt more unprepared
for anything as I do now. I procure debt faster than the U.S. treasury
can print money. My credit score can be calculated using fingers and
toes, and if I can go three months without receiving mail with the
letterhead The State of Maryland vs.
Brian Loeper, I consider it a success. Still, even if for the
next five years I am a child doing an impression of an adult, I never
worry about being overwhelmed. I have learned from my years as a Monk
fan that to make sense of everything would only take away from what
gives life character. I suppose it’s the mentality that if you are
going to hit the ground, you might as well hit it hard.
For all of my shortcomings though, I still never question my ability.
Thelonious Monk never told his band what songs they were playing or
what order the set would go. The guys were unprepared, but they were
capable. And that is all anything ever really takes. At least this
strategy took Monk and his men from cramped Southern bars to the
concert stage at Carnegie Hall. And he may have been unreliable, and he
may have been reclusive, and he may have been unstable, but above all,
Monk was talented and hardworking. At this juncture, I would like to
think those are the characteristics that I will always count above
all.
Brian
Loeper studies Professional
Writing and Speech Communication at
York College of Pennsylvania. He teaches journalism, electronics and
radio broadcast classes in upstate Pennsylvania.