I just can't get enough of this. When I was 17 or so, in about 1984, our school music department had a DJ booth wired up to the sixth-form common room, and students took turns to play records. When my turn came, I played tracks from 'Genius of Modern Music'. My turn never came again.
I'd say, Monk introduced the sound of disorder, discordance, sometimes even mistake and sloppiness into music as a stylistic device and made it beautiful and presentable and i love it.
Agree with all except 'beautiful'. I don't think it was ever Monk's aim to produce beauty. I enjoy his music tremendously but it's not on a par with anything else, except "modern" classical composers such as Bartók or Webern. A comment I read under a different video helped me realize why that is. Someone mentioned hearing "violence" and "force" in this music, and I think I agree. It is violent and angry, perhaps a form of protest against the established esthetics. But it's not beautiful and I wouldn't want or expect it to be.
@@vivvpprofbrilliant! Note that he has that one song “Ugly Beauty”, which I took to mean he wants listeners to appreciate a different type of beauty, one that is just as you say, more violent etc
I love to hear that bass timing with the left hand, while maintaining perfect rhytym with the right. Top level piano playing talent on display. I have become a fan of the Monk , his music is timeless.
Although he rarely abandons the main theme, you have to know these Ellington tunes deeply to fully realize what is going on. He stretches the phrases adding bars at unexpected points, making these interpretations truly beautiful and original. These are possibly the best filmed Monk's performances ever.
Love monk, but if you flip a cat 15 times it will always land on it's back. Not a sadist, I just tested and proved this theory when I was a very young person, I love cats also.
I think people make the mistake of assuming that he wasn't gifted technically and therefore compensated by creating the Monk sound. He SACRIFICED his technical ability in order to play the Monk sound. At that level of musicianship you need to practice constantly: by all accounts he was a wildly gifted classical musician in his youth. But he gave it up so he could hone his volume, swing and Monkness. Thank God.
Only a complete moron would assume Monk played the way he did because he was ungifted. That's gotta be one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. This cat was a straight-up genius. I'm glad he eschewed technical ability to hone his Monkness. Thank God is right!
@@Jalapablo thus he played the way he played because a efficient approach was too difficult to learn in that age or he simply didn´t want to anymore. focus on the music and not whether he was a high IQ genius or a pianistic moron. We have enough composers who cant even press a piano key and still have composed lovely piano compositions.
musicians may, and do, hone their skill to 'virtuoso' level, and are successful and have a respectable career in music. however, they spend most of their time performing others' works. but, imo, monk, and so many other great composers and artists, have something that only they can say.
1.Satin Doll 0:00 2. Sophisticated Lady 3:40 3. Caravan 8:15 4. Solitude 14:25 5. Crepuscule with Nellie18:30 6. blues for Duke 21:00 7 And I Love Her 26:00
At 14:15 the Genius allows himself a brief smile of absolute pure joy. Yes Mr. Monk, the crowd is not only madly clapping but also howling. Yes, they are telling you that you are the absolute best jazz pianist ever...Period!
My wife made a comment, that Monk played the piano "like he owed it money" but there' s just such a delicate, sublime beauty behind his movements. So very fluid, with soul and purpose, it can make you teary eyed, IMO
Piano is the ultimate solo instrument. And monk with his incredibly personal style shines brightest solo in my option. To know that every note you're hearing (and not hearing) is coming from his mind, it is utterly captivating. I could listen all day, quite literally.
Good point, I think if we are talking about classical music or rote music in general then the pipe organ might be the best solo instrument. Hearing a Bach toccata or passacaglia on organ, it's like the power of a whole orchestra and can produce a fullness of sound that piano cant achieve alone. However for jazz, especially considering its improvisational nature, I think the possibility for dynamics on the piano give the player more expressive control. It strikes a good compromise between the range and polyphony that a violin/woodwind/brass lacks, and the dynamics that an organ lacks. When I say piano is the ultimate solo instrument, what I really mean is that a piano is the best tool available for someone to express fully formed spontaneous musical ideas without the need for an accompanist.
En baguenaudant dans les prés du passé on peut cueillir des bouquets de fleurs folles et improbables on peut revenir avec des couplets de Thélonious et se dire que l'on a gagné son temps ! Plus j'entends ce compositeur venu d'un autre âge, plus j'apprécie sa qualité. Il n'est jamais ennuyeux, créant une variété de timbres avec une excellente orchestration. Beaux thèmes, bon développement, une touche parfois hésitante qui fait le sel de la vie, mais un doigté serein ......... ;-)
people say that thelonious monk was bad at playing piano, but I think that he was really somethin special. Like you can't put him in a box! He was playing his own way, people need to dig that. Not playing like all of the other boring old jazz pianists... The legend Thelonious Monk Love the Beatles cover in the end. Sarah Vaughn is something special indeed
I teteschi si accorsero che stava scomparendo il più grande talento della musica jazz, organizzarono tutto alla perfezione con la migliore tecnologia al mondo. Registrarono il volto e le mani di Monk per rimanere impressi nel pianeta terra per sempre. Grazie ai tedeschi, abbiamo la migliore testimonianza video di Thelonious e una delle migliori registrazioni moderne. L'america non avrebbe potuto mai farlo perchè gli basta il fatto di essere proprietaria della storia della musica Jazz e non solo. Instancabile filmato!!! Sublime Monk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monk is really strange one! But at the end sounds perfect! He plays in a way that sometimes looks like he commited a mistake or pressed wrong notes but the entire music sounds perfect! Lovely way to play!
Monk make a different tune, sound, emotion. He truly play it unique as he said and his style can deliver the emotion with strange sound. What very important in music is timing, Monk realize that and decide to play unusual sound on the right time and that make monk a truly unique and awesome.
@@jasontyus4558 Don't get me wrong. I consider myself to be skilled at many things. Skills that many would not have, but with that skill comes the ability to comprehend when an individual has something that will never be recreated. That is Monk.
Jesus Christ! Yet another mindblowing, if not the best version of caravan I've ever heard! Great video! Monk's improvisation is nearly unmatched. Mozart still takes the cake and the table and the house.
Thelonious tocaba con el alma de un ninho, y la concincia de un sabio, el era la pureza de el JAZZ , en cada nota y acorde esta demostrado, Genio Thelonious !!!
I was talking to a friend about Monk recently and I told her no one I mean no one!!! has or ever will play the piano like Monk did. Then I said, just to clarify there are many players who are more technically proficient than he was but no one will ever duplicate his connection with the keyboard or the way his mind dealt with 88 keys.
Monk is considered as one of the greatest jazz piano ever... Of course I love him and I can feel his genius in his playing... But I can't say if I like him better than Oscar Perterson, Bill Evans or other jazz top notch pianist... I guess I need to listen jazz pianists for hours, days and months... Very complicated when you like all kinds of music ;-)
I think the main thing to remember concerning music is it is not a contest. I also like Oscar, Bill, Herbie, Ahmad Jamal, Mcoy Tyner and on and on and on. The more the better. I just feel that what Monk ended up playing and composing after his education from Julliard and the piano players who influenced him is uniquely for lack of a better word Monk.
Julliard? I have never read that Monk went there - actually he was mostly self- taught, wasn't he? About the rest, I agree. He was also the most unique American composer ever. His sense of timing was totally original (and a bit frustrating for sidemen if you read his biography) and his melodies are almost always - well, the only word I can think of is happy.
Monk is the man on piano. Regarding technique: there are, no doubt, countless "technicians" on the piano. Very very few of them, with the exception of Oscar and a handful of others, are saying anything to me that I find interesting (as a musician and music lover). These other generic technicians play a rather one-dimensional piano (they're trying to play the 'right' notes at the quickest tempo possible for them). Monk plays a three-dimensional piano: he pulls notes out of not just the keyboard, but from the behind the piano, above the piano below the piano ... you get the point.
Mais um belo momento inolvidável em audição numa performance inigualável de um verdadeiro Príncipe do jazz ao seu maior nível a solo de Thelonious Monk.
He talks. It looks like he's playing the piano, but he's actually giving lectures, recounting incidents, narrating on different dynamics involving psychological complexity, multi-layered realities. Nobody like him. Never will be. I guess he and Beethoven constitute a category all on their own.
This cat is the same age (minus 1 month) as my granny, whom I miss dearly. I wish I would have been mature enough to appreciate Jazz and Thelonious Monk. RIP.
You can never say he plagiarized anyone, It's all Monk and he makes sure you know it! His playing is so revolutionary even now, so angular in his improvisation(no diatonic scales) , and composed some of the hardest but most beautiful music to play. It takes time to appreciate such genius, but once you get it your on the road to understanding artistic invention.
the Bach of American music with a unique keyboard style, the sound spaces being as contributory as the filled sound ... best wishes for the anniversary of your arrival
"The only cats worth anything are the cats who take chances. Sometimes I play things I never heard myself." Thelonious Monk
I just can't get enough of this. When I was 17 or so, in about 1984, our school music department had a DJ booth wired up to the sixth-form common room, and students took turns to play records. When my turn came, I played tracks from 'Genius of Modern Music'. My turn never came again.
Lol!
😂
Love this. I too discovered Monk in 1984, same exact age. HI FIVE to you!
I'd say, Monk introduced the sound of disorder, discordance, sometimes even mistake and sloppiness into music as a stylistic device and made it beautiful and presentable and i love it.
Agree with all except 'beautiful'. I don't think it was ever Monk's aim to produce beauty. I enjoy his music tremendously but it's not on a par with anything else, except "modern" classical composers such as Bartók or Webern. A comment I read under a different video helped me realize why that is. Someone mentioned hearing "violence" and "force" in this music, and I think I agree. It is violent and angry, perhaps a form of protest against the established esthetics. But it's not beautiful and I wouldn't want or expect it to be.
@@vivvpprofbrilliant! Note that he has that one song “Ugly Beauty”, which I took to mean he wants listeners to appreciate a different type of beauty, one that is just as you say, more violent etc
Isn't it remarkable that nearly all the quality film of the great Jazzmen comes from Europe.
Yeah sad that their own country didn't give the jazz era their well deserved media space
And isn't it remarkable that nearly all the great Jazzmen came to Europe.. by way of Africa 🤓
@@Randysilent Sadly, we often are unable to appreciate what is right in front of our face, or being...
whatever the subject at hand.
I love to hear that bass timing with the left hand, while maintaining perfect rhytym with the right. Top level piano playing talent on display. I have become a fan of the Monk , his music is timeless.
The king of disonance. Spectacular performance.
Although he rarely abandons the main theme, you have to know these Ellington tunes deeply to fully realize what is going on. He stretches the phrases adding bars at unexpected points, making these interpretations truly beautiful and original. These are possibly the best filmed Monk's performances ever.
I agree. I love Monk and have done for years. This video is just fantastic. This music comes from the soul, to the soul.
To me, it sounds like Monk's playing sophisticated piano-comedy.
He certainly makes me smile every time I listen to his recordings. 😊
If somebody asks you what does it mean to have your own voice on an instrument, point them to Monk! What a beautiful individual
WELL SAID!
Thelonious Monk Playing Solo Piano sounds like a man thinking out loud......I wish I know who I stole that from but it's perfect. \
@@jameslaugtug8937 нрллб ььбббьлхлжххдююю́ю́.юбь.ззщдл и
Monk is a cat who can always land. Even if you hold him upside down and drop him he'll land right way up.
it only looks to us like he's falling, to him it's a gentle ride to the perfect voicing.
Very poetic
So true!! Great description! 😎👍
And even when he falls, just like a cool cat, it looks like he meant to do it.
Love monk, but if you flip a cat 15 times it will always land on it's back. Not a sadist, I just tested and proved this theory when I was a very young person, I love cats also.
Mystical, Mischievous,Childlike and Funky......what else could you want??
I think people make the mistake of assuming that he wasn't gifted technically and therefore compensated by creating the Monk sound. He SACRIFICED his technical ability in order to play the Monk sound. At that level of musicianship you need to practice constantly: by all accounts he was a wildly gifted classical musician in his youth. But he gave it up so he could hone his volume, swing and Monkness. Thank God.
Only a complete moron would assume Monk played the way he did because he was ungifted. That's gotta be one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. This cat was a straight-up genius. I'm glad he eschewed technical ability to hone his Monkness. Thank God is right!
@@Jalapablo thus he played the way he played because a efficient approach was too difficult to learn in that age or he simply didn´t want to anymore. focus on the music and not whether he was a high IQ genius or a pianistic moron. We have enough composers who cant even press a piano key and still have composed lovely piano compositions.
musicians may, and do, hone their skill to 'virtuoso' level, and are successful and have a respectable career in music. however, they spend most of their time performing others' works. but, imo, monk, and so many other great composers and artists, have something that only they can say.
I love his sound and if you try to intentionally do what he does I find him one of the harder players to imitate , anyway love him so much
he sacraficed it, yeah, but that was also what made him a legend
1.Satin Doll 0:00
2. Sophisticated Lady 3:40
3. Caravan 8:15
4. Solitude 14:25
5. Crepuscule with Nellie18:30
6. blues for Duke 21:00
7 And I Love Her 26:00
Thanks!
Merci
thx !!! ♥
#5 is " Crepescule with Nellie",written for his wife
Juan Carlos Bravo Sandoval thank you!
A refreshingly different take on"Caravan"This shows how Monk was,among many other things,a stride pianist at heart.
Sooo 🔥🔥🔥
Head cuttin
True dat. Monk Revered James P Johnson.
This is one of the most precious and beautiful video ever
The "unknown monk tune" is Crepuscule With Nellie, originally recorded by Monk in 1957 for an album called Monk's Music.
incidentally one of his most known pieces :)
Это непередаваемое волшебство!браво маэстро,браво король джаза!❤❤❤❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉👏👏👏👏👏👏👍👍🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
At 14:15 the Genius allows himself a brief smile of absolute pure joy. Yes Mr. Monk, the crowd is not only madly clapping but also howling. Yes, they are telling you that you are the absolute best jazz pianist ever...Period!
My wife made a comment, that Monk played the piano "like he owed it money" but there' s just such a delicate, sublime beauty behind his movements.
So very fluid, with soul and purpose, it can make you teary eyed, IMO
Like it owed him money.
Or rather like he owed the tune his performance of it - And that's money in the bank, for sure!
I don't understand this phrase. I should know better than to read comments while enjoying a performance. still, it's bothering me.
@@timburns5967 It means Monk is hitting the piano keys violently - the same way you'd beat someone who owed you money in a mob film
we are very lucky to have this in video. This mans music is beautiful!
Best version of satin doll I didnt/couldnt ever imagine that tune could be/to be so hip. Incredible.
Piano is the ultimate solo instrument. And monk with his incredibly personal style shines brightest solo in my option. To know that every note you're hearing (and not hearing) is coming from his mind, it is utterly captivating. I could listen all day, quite literally.
what about pipe organ?
Good point, I think if we are talking about classical music or rote music in general then the pipe organ might be the best solo instrument. Hearing a Bach toccata or passacaglia on organ, it's like the power of a whole orchestra and can produce a fullness of sound that piano cant achieve alone.
However for jazz, especially considering its improvisational nature, I think the possibility for dynamics on the piano give the player more expressive control. It strikes a good compromise between the range and polyphony that a violin/woodwind/brass lacks, and the dynamics that an organ lacks.
When I say piano is the ultimate solo instrument, what I really mean is that a piano is the best tool available for someone to express fully formed spontaneous musical ideas without the need for an accompanist.
En baguenaudant dans les prés du passé on peut cueillir des bouquets de fleurs folles et improbables on peut revenir avec des couplets de Thélonious et se dire que l'on a gagné son temps ! Plus j'entends ce compositeur venu d'un autre âge, plus j'apprécie sa qualité. Il n'est jamais ennuyeux, créant une variété de timbres avec une excellente
orchestration. Beaux thèmes, bon développement, une touche parfois hésitante qui fait le sel de la vie, mais un doigté serein ......... ;-)
people say that thelonious monk was bad at playing piano, but I think that he was really somethin special. Like you can't put him in a box! He was playing his own way, people need to dig that. Not playing like all of the other boring old jazz pianists... The legend Thelonious Monk
Love the Beatles cover in the end. Sarah Vaughn is something special indeed
I teteschi si accorsero che stava scomparendo il più grande talento della musica jazz, organizzarono tutto alla perfezione con la migliore tecnologia al mondo. Registrarono il volto e le mani di Monk per rimanere impressi nel pianeta terra per sempre. Grazie ai tedeschi, abbiamo la migliore testimonianza video di Thelonious e una delle migliori registrazioni moderne. L'america non avrebbe potuto mai farlo perchè gli basta il fatto di essere proprietaria della storia della musica Jazz e non solo. Instancabile filmato!!! Sublime Monk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dude is GENIUS!
Jazz and Thelonious Monk are the Best of Art that USA give us ...
Monk is really strange one! But at the end sounds perfect! He plays in a way that sometimes looks like he commited a mistake or pressed wrong notes but the entire music sounds perfect! Lovely way to play!
Noticed that too, but couldn't stop listening. Very intriguing. I like it.
that's the sign of genius
absolutely true, that is the first thing I noticed.
He intruduced the sound of mistake and sloppiness into music as a stylistic device and made it presentable and i love it.
@@L1102rather than the sound of mistake and sloppiness I would suggest the sounds of creativity and total freedom. That’s why you love it.
The Monk aesthetics, love from 🇿🇦
Thelonious Monk is the Truth.
♡
Monk make a different tune, sound, emotion. He truly play it unique as he said and his style can deliver the emotion with strange sound. What very important in music is timing, Monk realize that and decide to play unusual sound on the right time and that make monk a truly unique and awesome.
Listening all night long! Thanks God to give us Monk
I'd never heard Monk play "Satin Doll" before! Just another revelation, courtesy of UA-cam.....
I wish I could be as good at something as Monk was at the piano. He's insane in this video. His interpretations of these Duke classics are incredible.
We’re all good at something. Just work on being good at being you
@@jasontyus4558 Don't get me wrong. I consider myself to be skilled at many things. Skills that many would not have, but with that skill comes the ability to comprehend when an individual has something that will never be recreated. That is Monk.
Quel plaisir pour les tympans ! Merci
Who goes out of their way to click "thumbs down" on this masterpiece? Diff'rent strokes make the world go round, but c'mon...
Yesterday,today and always Monk for ever!!
Unknown- Crepuscule with Nellie. Superb.
Unknown huh! one of his biggest song :)
Le pianiste qui ne se trompe jamais..CArla Bley 🎉🎉🎉
Jesus Christ! Yet another mindblowing, if not the best version of caravan I've ever heard! Great video! Monk's improvisation is nearly unmatched. Mozart still takes the cake and the table and the house.
Or satie chopin ravel
GENIUS, R.I.P. 100 YEARS,
thank you for the upload
Thelonious tocaba con el alma de un ninho, y la concincia de un sabio, el era la pureza de el JAZZ , en cada nota y acorde esta demostrado, Genio Thelonious !!!
When monk died so did the progression In jazz,rip.
Love you .monk
Ver a ese hombre tocar el piano de esa forma, es un milagro!!!
Ads on the master is like a billboard before a sunset
Thank you so much, Mr. Monk. Really.
Someone on earth from 2020.
The hands of a Master
23:23
What a beautiful fluent sophisticated tune,man !!
I can see beautiful night sea in his tune.
I was talking to a friend about Monk recently and I told her no one I mean no one!!! has or ever will play the piano like Monk did. Then I said, just to clarify there are many players who are more technically proficient than he was but no one will ever duplicate his connection with the keyboard or the way his mind dealt with 88 keys.
rolling1up. Agree......like Hendrix and the electric guitar.
Monk is considered as one of the greatest jazz piano ever... Of course I love him and I can feel his genius in his playing... But I can't say if I like him better than Oscar Perterson, Bill Evans or other jazz top notch pianist... I guess I need to listen jazz pianists for hours, days and months... Very complicated when you like all kinds of music ;-)
I think the main thing to remember concerning music is it is not a contest. I also like Oscar, Bill, Herbie, Ahmad Jamal, Mcoy Tyner and on and on and on. The more the better. I just feel that what Monk ended up playing and composing after his education from Julliard and the piano players who influenced him is uniquely for lack of a better word Monk.
Julliard? I have never read that Monk went there - actually he was mostly self- taught, wasn't he? About the rest, I agree. He was also the most unique American composer ever. His sense of timing was totally original (and a bit frustrating for sidemen if you read his biography) and his melodies are almost always - well, the only word I can think of is happy.
Monk is the man on piano. Regarding technique: there are, no doubt, countless "technicians" on the piano. Very very few of them, with the exception of Oscar and a handful of others, are saying anything to me that I find interesting (as a musician and music lover). These other generic technicians play a rather one-dimensional piano (they're trying to play the 'right' notes at the quickest tempo possible for them). Monk plays a three-dimensional piano: he pulls notes out of not just the keyboard, but from the behind the piano, above the piano below the piano ... you get the point.
Mais um belo momento inolvidável em audição numa performance inigualável de um verdadeiro Príncipe do jazz ao seu maior nível a solo de Thelonious Monk.
Wow!! Have heard so many of his music, but first time seeing him play...ever! love it!
the most amazing tribute to duke ellington.
Monks time is as solid as a rock
Jazz with a smile!
What a beautiful odd genius!!!!!
It doesn't get any better than this.
Great hearing Monk play basically an all-Duke program. And, nice cluster chord at 20:04!
OOHHHHH MY God! Satin Doll......
Ads should not be allowed to disrupt this profound experience
Amazing to watch as well as hear him play. He makes it look so easy! Great upload.
wonderful
Thank you for sharing this precious record!!! Love love love his music😊😊😊
Monk the devil of jazz-piano!Good as hell and hell-hard to copy!
Thelonious Monk ,incroyablement beau.
He talks. It looks like he's playing the piano, but he's actually giving lectures, recounting incidents, narrating on different dynamics involving psychological complexity, multi-layered realities. Nobody like him. Never will be. I guess he and Beethoven constitute a category all on their own.
This cat is the same age (minus 1 month) as my granny, whom I miss dearly. I wish I would have been mature enough to appreciate Jazz and Thelonious Monk. RIP.
This master is spellbinding
A GENIUS A GIFT TO HUMANITY
this man is inspiring me
You can never say he plagiarized anyone, It's all Monk and he makes sure you know it! His playing is so revolutionary even now, so angular in his improvisation(no diatonic scales) , and composed some of the hardest but most beautiful music to play. It takes time to appreciate such genius, but once you get it your on the road to understanding artistic invention.
I am still in awe of this man. I cry every time I hear this
WOW Love And I love him nice vocal surprise!
Born 100 years ago just today... :-)
the Bach of American music with a unique keyboard style, the sound spaces being as contributory as the filled sound ... best wishes for the anniversary of your arrival
Sarah Vaughn, as usual, with the sublime vocals. Wow....
Teloniohus m.the blood ands.la música corre por sus manos.manos de seda monks.fantástico.
Theo MONK un dieu du JAZZ
Merci !! pour cette mise en ligne, un hostie de beau concert...
Renaud
I love this! thanks for the upload btw the unknown monk's song after solitude is "Crepuscule with Nellie"
After dinner with Nellie. What is Epistrophy?
This cat had multiple clocks in his head simultaneously. So many different time signatures in one phrase
Sarah Vaughan's performance is so beautiful.
26:10
27:27
Loved it
avant garde stride piano, with a grin. Brilliant.
This is great.
It’s November 2020 & I’m still listening
beauty. thank you
♥️ IMMENSO.
Pure art!!!
Absolute beast
Classique
Please bang the piano some more for the critics! Long Live the spirit of Monk.
GOLD
encasing a diamond!
scratches the spots you never knew itched
Art Tatum for speed
Thelonious Monk for creativity
Master. Just striding along.
7:57 that chord tho
Que genio maravilloso fue Thelonius Monk😮
Una belleza la musica de Thelonius
5. "Crepuscule with Nelly" it's not unknown
Monk broke the rules of the piano playing, he invented a unique way to use it.
Una excelencia para mis oídos.
Amazing to watch..
The onliest one taking that Duke in stride. Beauty