Why Was Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser Important
BiographyThelonious MonkThelonious Sphere MonkComposer, Pianist, Bandleader(1917 - 1982)The colored dots show the fastest links Home or Tribute Pages:.Biographies:.Articles:.Reviews:.Discographies:.Other:.Thelonious Monk was an idiosyncratic jazz pianist who left a relatively small but very significant body of work. He grew up in New York City and as a young child could play anything he heard.
Why Was Thelonious Monk Straight No Chaser Important People
He was influenced by the early stride pianists, and by 17 he was on the road with a gospel singer/evangelist.In 1944 hired him for his band which included, who was at the forefront of the bebop movement. Monk helped develop bebop as a more intellectual approach to music. If the guys wanted to throw somebody off, they called Monk’s “” which hardly anyone could play because of its difficult harmonic structure.Monk’s music was incomprehensible to most at the outset, and even today many musicians are wary of tackling his eccentric pieces, full of dissonance and rhythmic displacement. Some of his works, in the style of the beboppers, are reharmonizations of standard tunes: “” is the basis for “” and “,” for “Sixteen.”Monk’s career took off in the late ‘50s with three important recordings:,. In 1959 he performed at Town Hall with an orchestra, made the cover of Time magazine in 1964, and toured Europe with his band, featuring saxophonist, his musical soul mate.
His last performance was at the 1976 Newport Jazz Festival, after which he withdrew from the public eye until his death.Monk is best appreciated as a soloist and his reinterpretations of standards are especially enlightening. Resetting this pc 1% stuck windows10.
Running time90 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishThelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser is a 1988 about the life of pianist and composer. Directed by, it features live performances by Monk and his group, and posthumous interviews with friends and family.
The film was created when a large amount of archived of Monk was found in the 1980s.The film, made by (Clint Eastwood's production company), is distributed by Warner Bros.; Eastwood served as.In 2017, the film was selected for preservation in the United States by the as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. Contents.Production After meeting on the streets of New York, director and cinematographer mentioned to film producer Bruce Ricker that he and his brother have done some work on jazz, referring to a one-hour film special on Thelonious Monk that only aired once in Germany. After Ricker saw the footage, calling them 'the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz', he suggested that they use the footage as the focus of a new documentary. Ricker brought in Charlotte Zwerin to help with the production of the film, which led to four producers; Ricker, Zwerin, and the Blackwood brothers.While they originally planned to enlist Monk for the film, he was not well enough to approach and his failing health led to his eventual death of a stroke on February 17, 1982. Blackwood filmed the funeral while Zwerin and Ricker planned to make a deal with the Monk estate. Monk's death brought up complications on the film's production, however, as the absence of a will and the fact that New York did not recognize common law marriages led to a lengthy process before Monk's children could become the executors of the estate. Before any deals could be made by Zwerin and Ricker, the rights to Monk's life story was bought by 'two young men, with a substantial chunk of money and no prior film experience', which delayed production of the film.After the delay Zwerin and Ricker struggled to fund the project and only raised enough money for a one-hour television program with limited post-TV distribution potential.
Ricker eventually came into contact with Clint Eastwood and after finding out his appreciation of jazz and the bebop genre asked if he was interested in helping with production of the film. Clint Eastwood agreed to have his production studio Malpaso produce the film and gave them the budget needed to finish the film.Old footage from different network companies were used, along with the footage from the Blackwood brothers' previous work. New footage was also shot, featuring interviews with his son, Thelonious Monk Jr., tenor saxophonist, and other family and friends of Monk.Footage origins After being commissioned by West German public television in 1967 to create a one-hour special film on Thelonious Monk, director and cinematographer Christian Blackwood and his brother Michael Blackwood closely followed Monk for six months as he travelled around New York, Atlanta, and Europe. From this project arose thirteen hours of outtakes, showing live performances by Monk and his band along with the only footage of Monk offstage. The footage was stored for almost two decades after the one-hour special, which was only broadcast in Germany, was aired.Reception Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser was first shown at the New York film Festival in October 1989 and opened to strong reviews. A review claims it as 'some of the most valuable jazz ever shot' as the close up shots of Monk's hands on the piano reveals his unusual technique. The film is generally praised for giving an intimate view of the otherwise reserved Monk.References.
2009-12-31 at the. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
Lowwinger, Lawrence. 'GET REAL' Charlotte Zwerin's Documentary Directions.' The Independent July 1990: n. 'GET REAL' Charlotte Zwerin's Documentary Directions, by Lawrence Loewinger. Springer, Mike.
'Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser.' Open Culture. N.p., 14 Oct. 2014.
Holden, Stephen. 'Tracking the Life and Art Of Thelonious Monk.' New York Times 30 Sept. The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Sept. External links. on.
Monk Misterioso
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