Monkadelphia: All Monk, All the Time

Thelonious Monk's Unique Persona

AAJ: Let's talk about Monk's persona. He was a very singular personality. In fact, the subtitle of Kelley's biography refers to him as "An American Original." As musicians, you meet your cohorts all the time and encounter all sizes and types. Now, you could almost have two different pictures of Monk. On the one hand, he was a sincere, caring, straight ahead, intelligent man, had a large circle of friends and family who adored him. On the other hand, he could be easily described as eccentric, mentally ill, addicted, unreliable, erratic, and impulsive. All this is legend and story by now. Now, as Monkadelphia, you must consider him to be a hero. So what do make of this complex human being to whose music you are dedicated?


JM: What I thought was great about Robin Kelley's biography is that he covers both sides, and after reading it, the examples of Monk's behavior are not that extreme. I mean, he reminds me of many people I've known. He's a great musician. That's it. And whatever comes wrapped up with that package is what you get.

TM: What did you think of his dancing on the stage and all that?

JM: He said he did that so he could hear the band better, and some musicians said he was giving them directions. It's like people criticize Miles Davis for turning his back on the audience, while actually when he was doing that he could listen better to his band. So there are always several different interpretations for this stuff.

TM: I watched Miles from back stage when he was doing that. There are people you have to give license to. If Monk was spinning around on stage, I say, OK, so what.

JM: It's like Keith Jarrett with his vocalisms, gyrating, and all that.

TM: I have a hard time with that, it's distracting. See, that's the point. There's a current musician who's very eccentric, and someone told me it's a stage act. If you're on stage, you do things to get attention.

JM: In the Monk biography, he quotes Monk as saying, "Sometimes it's to your benefit for people to think you're crazy."

TM: I was watching a group on YouTube the other night, and this guy jumps up in the air for the last chord, which is a major triad. And I'm thinking, "No. Major triads don't usually require jumps in the air at the end of a tune. [Laughter.] Then, sometimes I wonder about myself, do I do dumb stuff? Like at times I smack my lips when I'm playing. And I can hear it on some of my recordings, and it kind of bugs me. Also I wonder whether Monk really was doing theatrics. I was married to an actress, and she encouraged me to use theatrics when I play.

TL: Maybe Monk was just having fun. And also, when he sat out a couple of choruses, he'd be listening and maybe spontaneously strolling around.

AAJ: There were times when he used that dance as a gimmick, because one time he did it in a revolving door, and another time in a filmed scene at an airport.

TL: Also, Monk had bipolar disorder, and maybe he did funny things during a manic episode, but at the same time, when he was feeling good, he had a very sardonic sense of humor.

TM: The other thing is that he used street drugs, and he also had bad prescriptions, and maybe that had something to do with it.

AAJ: Just as an aside, do you think there's less drug abuse among the jazz players today than there was then?

TL: Yes, I think so. It's gotten better.

Nica de Koenigswarter and Jazz Groupies

AAJ: Monk had a companion named Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter. She befriended Monk, Charlie Parker, and a number of other musicians of the time.

JM: She had a dozen or more close musician friends.

TM: She was a member of the wealthy Rothschild family, and they rejected her possibly because she hung out with them.

AAJ: There are people like her who hang out with musicians.

TM: They're called drummers. [Laughter.]

JM: You planned that one. Right on time!

AAJ: There are folks like Koenigswarter who help the musicians. She did great favors for them and helped them out in all sorts of ways. In your experience, is this a phenomenon of jazz groups?

TM: Not so much now. In Monk's time, jazz was the music everyone listened to, very popular. A jazz group was almost like a rock band in that sense. Now, it's more like an art form, and I don't see too many groupies hanging around the bands. But I played a gig with Dave Posmontier. It was a class reunion from the '60s. And 300 of them hung out after the gig just to hear us jam. And I realized that they represented the end of an era, they were part of it all back then.

TL: Occasionally, we get someone who hangs out a lot and knows a lot of our tunes. But they're not there to help us out. Most of us haven't run into the likes of Baroness von Koenigswarter. She was almost a philanthropist.

AAJ: I heard that occasionally someone will have a patron, though.

TM: I had a lady patron. She was wealthy. She literally brought us food to gigs. She took care of us.

AAJ: Do you think Koenigswarter has a positive place in jazz history?

JM: Sure. Guys write tunes about her. Monk's composition"Pannonica" is about her, as is Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream."

TM: I think she'll always be remembered in a positive light as someone who was there when the guys needed her.

Concluding Reflections

AAJ: So, to begin to wrap it up, what would you say is the future of your group, Monkadelphia?



TL: Rowan University, Somers Point, wherever we play next. That's our future. Wherever we get a gig. And we have a new CD coming out.

TM: I do sometimes wish we had a manager like Ted Kurland or somebody like him. We need someone to sell us. We do see musicians who do act successfully as their own managers. But all we want for Monkadelphia is to play the tunes.

TL: And we want to do that in an open fashion. We don't want to box them in with elaborate arrangements and a lot of planning. That's good for new music, where you want the exposure. But for the music that's been around, my favorite approach is that of the Keith Jarrett Trio. "Just play." That's what we do. Most of it is about playing in the moment. And the more we get to do that, the more it evolves. All of us are involved in a number of projects. The Monkadelphia group is a player's band. I just like the idea of how many different ways can Monk's music go. When I started playing, Monk wasn't done that much. Now everybody covers Monk. The only difference with Monkadelphia is that all our tunes are Monk's.

AAJ: To conclude, I often ask what each of you would say is your philosophy of life, gives meaning to it. Do you have any spiritual orientation or practice?

TM: I personally am not religious at all. For me, religion is too much about who's right and who's wrong, tunnel vision. I just think I love playing music. Play, have fun, and one day the ticker stops. Music has been my life forever.

TL: For me, I'm spiritual but not religious. I feel in tune with the notion that there's a glue that's holding the cosmos together.

JM: Superglue. [Laughter.]

TL: On the one hand I take it seriously, but I don't believe one should take oneself too seriously. We all have our egos, but I try to back off from that. Basically, I'd say, to sum it up, that life is about staying in the moment. And then whatever is the best expression in that moment, that's what I'm after musically.

JM: In the moment, that's for sure. My basic philosophy is that I hope that after I'm gone, everyone who knew me will remember me with a smile.

Selected Discography

Jim Miller Time, A Brief History of (Jim Miller) Time (Dreambox Media, 2008)

Tom Lawton, Retrospective/Debut (Dreambox Media, 2004)

Jim Miller Time, If It's Not One Thing... (Dreambox Media, 2004)

Tony Miceli/The Philly 5, Looking East (Self Produced, 2003)

Monkadelphia, Monkadelphia (Orchard, 2000)

Photo Credits

Thelonious Monk, Page 1:Courtesy of The Official Thelonious Monk Website

All Other Photos Courtesy of Monkadelphia

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