In many ways, writing this book parallels Thelonious Monk’s life—a long, arduous, rewarding journey with a gang of people generously helping along the way. This book was a community project, and the community of family, friends, musicians, activists, scholars, writers, and others runs deep. First and foremost, it was the late Marc Crawford, an extraordinary writer, jazz expert, mentor, and friend who encouraged me to write a book on Monk and put me in touch with Thelonious Monk, Jr. (Toot), and his lovely wife, Gale. Toot gave me something even more valuable—permission. He and Gale endured years of my pleading phone calls and faxes, as I tried to make the case that I was capable of taking on such a monumental figure. I only convinced him after Dr. Peter Grain, Gale’s brother, invited me out to Toot’s place and Toot granted me a hearing. I showed up that day over a decade ago, brimming with exuberance and toting four years of research stuffed in three large boxes and my computer hard drive. Six hours later, Toot and Peter were convinced they found their man, and I left feeling as though I knew nothing about Thelonious Monk. Thus began a wonderful and fruitful collaboration.
I did not want to write an authorized biography, and Toot agreed. He never told me what to write, or asked for the right to approve anything, or required early drafts. He wasn’t interested in hagiography; he always expressed an enormous respect for careful scholarship, and in our many hours of conversation he never shied away from difficult questions. He only asked me to do two things: “Dig deep and tell the truth.” I could not have dreamed of a better situation.
Toot, Gale, and Peter introduced me to Monk’s kith and kin. Mrs. Nellie Monk, who passed away in 2002, showed me nothing but kindness and generosity. She shared her juices, her special remedies, and her heartfelt concern after a car struck me down in Newark, New Jersey. (Ironically, three minutes before it happened, I was on the phone with Nellie, having just returned from a particularly productive day of research at Rutgers’s Institute for Jazz Studies.) She also shared many, many stories. Some stories she took to the grave with her, keeping her promise to her husband to preserve their privacy. It was one of the qualities about Nellie I have come to appreciate.
The rest of the family and close friends were equally generous with their time. I’m particularly indebted to Evelyn (“Weetee”) Smith, Jackie Bonneau, Benetta (“Teeny”) Bines, Thomas Monk, Jr., and Alonzo White, not only for sharing stories but also rare photographs, tapes, and various documents. They made phone calls, answered my persistent questions, and actively supported my efforts to the bitter end. Huge thanks to Theolonious Monk, Charlotte Washington, Geraldine Smith, Clifton Smith, Judith Smith, Dr. Anna Lou Smith, Helen Graham, Nica Val-Hackett, Barbara Monk, Almetta Monk Revis (North Carolina), and the New Haven Monk clan—Olivia Monk, Pam Kelley Monk, Conley F. Monk, Jr., Marcella Monk Flake, and Evelyn Pue—for the valuable knowledge they passed on, and to Marcellus Green for making connections, digging through the storage facility with me, and sharing stories, photos, and scrapbooks.
Much gratitude to Mavis Swire, Alberta Saunders, and Theo Wilson for sharing their stories of San Juan Hill; to Toni and David Behm for graciously opening up their home and sharing their memories and precious collection of documents from the Five Spot left by Toni’s dad, Joe Termini, and to Iggy Termini for his memories; to Mrs. Bernice Slaughter and her son, Ed Slaughter, Jr., for recounting Monk’s adventures in the Pacific Northwest; to Valerie Wilmer for the gift of her taped interview with Thelonious Monk (with John “Hoppy” Hopkins), conducted, coincidentally, on my third birthday; and to Nadine and Shaun de Koenigswarter, for sharing rare documents, photos, and memories of the Baroness.
Of course, boundless gratitude to the musicians who shared their stories—some of whom have since joined the ancestors: David Amram, David Baker, Richard Duck Baker, Ran Blake, Walter Booker, Tyrone Brown, Jaki Byard, Leon Ndugu Chancler, Ornette Coleman, Bob Cranshaw, Richard Davis, William Edmonson, Morris Edwards, Rose Gales, Leonard Gaskin, Kofi Ghanaba, Johnny Griffin, Barry Harris, Roy Haynes, Albert “Tootie” Heath, Eddie Henderson, Jon Hendricks, Steve Lacy, Abbey Lincoln, Teo Macero, Wynton Marsalis, Jackie McLean, Rene McLean, Mischa Mengleberg, Larry Ridley, Ben Riley, Max Roach, Roswell Rudd, Idrees Sulieman, Sir Charles Thompson, Dr. Billy Taylor, Cecil Taylor, Butch Warren, and Leroy Williams. There are some musicians who deserve special mention: Bertha Hope, who granted many interviews, made phone calls on my behalf, and remained a champion of this project; Paul Jeffrey, who sat through what turned out to be a ten-hour conversation, capped off by Mr. Jeffrey treating me to dinner; Jimmy Owens, who not only offered recollections but gave me trumpet lessons back in 1969 (I was seven) and must bear some responsibility for my journey to Monk’s music; Sathima Bea Benjamin, who taught me more about melody than she realizes; Eddie Locke, who not only told his stories with good humor, but gave me a dissertation of unsolicited (and useful!) advice, and graciously shared his beautiful photos of Thelonious Monk for this book. And, finally, Randy Weston—a giant among giants, Randy has encouraged me for over a decade and given me priceless insights into this magnificent music and its source.
Harry Colomby, Monk’s manager, spent many patient hours with me searching his memory and files for anything and everything on his first client. His brother Bobby Colomby was equally generous. Monk’s former road manager, Bob Jones, offered his stories as well as valuable documents from his own files. And many, many others shared memories and memorabilia: the late Prophet Jennings, Chris Albertson, Paul Bacon, Collette Hawkins, Teo Macero, Danny Scher, Sandra Capello, Robert Kraft, Alice Wright, Myra and Sam Ross, Jr., Herman Leonard, Michael Blackwood, Wren Brown, the late Lem Martinez Carroll, Evelyn Colbert, Bevan Dufty, Margo Guryan and David Rosner, Lenore Gordon-Ferkin, Robin and Laura Dunlop (and Jacquelyn Modeste for the introduction), Freddie Robinson, Joseph Wilson, Bob Lemkowitz, Arthur Leibowitz, and Dr. Barry Zaret.
Thanks to my long-time editor, Bruce Nichols, who patiently shepherded this project through the first decade, offering suggestions and insights only a musician-editor could, and then passing it off to the capable Martin Beiser when Bruce decided to leave Free Press. Martin gently prodded me along and ignored my rants about needing two volumes. Instead, he calmly helped excise close to 70,000 words and made this a much better book. So did Eric Rayman, the renowned attorney and former magazine editor who read it for the legal department. The entire team at Simon & Schuster/Free Press treated me like royalty, and their excitement for Thelonious Monk was palpable. To my first agent, Denise Stinson, who sold the book, and my new agent, Tanya McKinnon, for her patience and encouragement; and finally, Deb Chasman and Tisha Hooks at Beacon Press, whose insight and support kept me focused.
My jazz people, my inner spheres, my sounding board: there would be no book without Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies, then under the founding director, Robert O’Meally. He invited me to be the first Louis Armstrong Professor of Jazz Studies, giving me precious time to think about this book. Beyond the institutional support, Robert and his equally brilliant wife, dance scholar Jacqui Malone, have given me unyielding intellectual, moral, and spiritual guidance through my journey with Monk from its inception. So has Farah Jasmine Griffin, my intellectual soulmate. Her insights are all through the book, and she paved the way with her stunning meditation on Billie Holiday. Behind them and behind this book stands the entire Columbia University Jazz Studies Group: Dwight Andrews, Herman Beavers, Garnette Cordigan, Danny Dawson, Yulanda Denoon, Ann Douglass, Gerald Early, Brent Edwards, Krin Gabbard, Kevin Gaines, John Gennari, Maxine Gordon, Kyra Gaunt, William Harris, Vijay Iyer, Travis Jackson, Margo Jefferson, George Lewis, William Lowe, Timothy Mangin, Herbie Miller, Ingrid Monson, Fred Moten, Dawn Norfleet, Guy Ramsey, D. L. Smith, John Szwed, Jeff Taylor, Greg Thomas, W. S. Tkweme, the late Mark Tucker, Sherrie Tucker, Penny Von Eschen, Chris Washburne, and Salim Washington. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space to delineate how each participant contributed to Thelonious Monk, but I can say it was paradigm shifting. I must also thank Monica Hairston, Nanette de Jong, Eric Porter, Nichole Rustin, Danny Widener, Karl Miller, Karen Sotiropolous—former students whose scholarship on music shaped this book immeasurably.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been thinking, talking about, and playing Monk’s music for a good quarter century, and throughout I’ve been schooled by many of the greatest minds—poets and professors, composers and critics, friends and comrades. The list includes Amiri Baraka, T. J. Anderson and Lois Anderson, Jayne Cortez, Stanley Crouch, Angela Davis, Anthony Davis, Thulani Davis, Michael Dawson, Gina Dent, Graham Haynes, Geoffrey Jacques, Arthur Jafa, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Acklyn Lynch, Jason Moran, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, Tracie Morris, Franklin Rosemont, Sonia Sanchez, Sekou Sundiata, Greg Tate, Quincy Troupe, Naomi Wallace, Cornel West, and Clark White. Ted Joans and Laura Corsiglia deserve special mention; our home was theirs whenever they were in New York, and often those visits turned into our very own “discourse on Thelonioulism.” Thanks to George Lipsitz and Tricia Rose, my models for studying culture with an eye toward social justice; to Eric Wright, for our intermittent, twenty-five-year conversation about this music; to Michael and Marcia Dyson, for their insights, for shout outs, and unremitting love.
Thanks to Don and Maureen Sickler of Second Floor Music, not only for granting me permission to reprint some of the lyrics herein but also for schooling me on Monk’s compositions and the secret world of music publishing. To Michael Cuscuna, for granting permission to reproduce some of Frank Wolff’s photos as well as for his own pioneering research on Monk’s Blue Note years. To Olga Quackenbush for graciously allowing me to include some of Doug Quackenbush’s spectacular photographs and writings. To Bruce Lundvall, Bev McCord, and John Ray for their assistance gaining access to Blue Note’s files. And to the great Marcel Fleiss, who kindly gave permission to reproduce two of his photos of Monk free of charge.
I’m grateful to the many research assistants I hired along the way, notably Adam Bush, Betsy Esch, Amy Jordan, Michael Heller, Liz Hinton, Mark Padoongpatt, Dan Prosterman, Kendra Tappin, Christine Jean-Louis, Kim Gilmore, Njoroge Njoroge, Russell Marlborough, Michael Kaye, Beth Coleman, Suzanne Lewis, Elleza Kelley, Harald Kisiedu, Rujeko Hockley, and especially Maxine Gordon, whose deep ties to the jazz world proved more valuable than tracking down articles. I also wish to thank Taylor Ho Bynum—a great musician in his own right—for interviewing Jaki Byard and helping out in many other ways, Lynda Wright for transcribing several interviews, and Carmela Kelly for genealogical assistance. Much gratitude to the many translators who stepped in—some working solely on a volunteer basis: Beth Coleman and Noubissie Thierry Kehou (French); Chris Kelley and Fujiko Kelley (Japanese); Virginia Kay (Italian); Andrzej M. Salski (Polish); Markus Wailand (Dutch); Harald Kisiedu (German); Yuko Miki (Portuguese).
To the archivists and individuals who shared private collections: special thanks to the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, especially its eminent director, Dan Morgenstern, and its incredibly knowledgeable archivists, Ed Berger, Annie Kuebler, Vincent Pelote, and Tad Hershorn (who also shared draft chapters from his book on Norman Granz); Howard Dodson, James Briggs Murray, Diana Lachatanere, and the staff at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; George Boziwick, archivist for music division, New York Public Library, and his staff, Matt Snyder and Leslie Foss; Sam Perryman of the Library of Congress; Sam Stephenson of the Center for Documentary Studies for granting me access to the W. Eugene Smith tapes; the staff at the Tamiment Library at NYU, especially Andrew Lee and Jane Latour and the late Debra Bernhardt; Jeni Dahmus, archivist for the Juilliard School; Ms. Renee Leveen, Stuyvesant High School archivist; Ralph Scott, Special Collections, East Carolina University; Bruce Bastin, who shared documents from the Joe Davis Papers in his personal possession; Camille Billops and Richard Hatch of the Hatch-Billops collection; Toby Byron, Avalon Archives, Ltd.; Victor Remer, the Children’s Aid Society; Richard Wandel, Associate Archivist of the New York Philharmonic Archives; Lt. Jay Steinbrenner, City of Batavia Fire Department, for sharing valuable clippings; Ms. Lourdes Silva, Registrar Florida Memorial College, for finding Nellie Monk’s college transcript; and, finally, to the various staff at the National Archives; Reuben Jackson and the staff at the Smithsonian Institution Jazz Archives, Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; Columbia University Archives; CBS; Museum of Television and Motion Pictures; North Carolina State Archives, Records and Manuscript Division; Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; several North Carolina county officials who helped me navigate various courthouse records; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Monterey Jazz Festival, Braun Music Library, Sound Archives, Stanford University; the New York City Municipal Archives; the WKCR archives at Columbia University, and its overseer, Phil Schaap; the Wagner Archives and Steinway Piano archives, both at LaGuardia Community College; the Centre d’Information du Jazz, Paris; the National Jazz Archive, Loughton Central Library, England; the National Sound Archive, the British Library; Wolfram Knauer of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt.
The generosity shown me by most scholars, writers, and collectors has exceeded all expectations. I’m especially grateful to Ira Gitler, Eugene Holley, Jacques Ponzio, Lewis Porter, Peter Pullman, Chris Sheridan, Rob van der Bliek, Daniel Schafer, Lisa Hazirjian, and anonymous collectors for freely sharing insights, information, recordings, videos, and related material. I’m indebted to Antoine Sanfuentes of NBC for sharing his incredible interview with Butch Warren; Mark Naison and Brian Purnell for sharing rich materials on the history of the Bronx; and Mike Manners of the Cherry Lawn Alumni Association. Thanks to Peter Keepnews for giving me Paul Bacon’s contact information, and to Orrin Keepnews for clarifying a few discographical questions—though to my regret he did not agree to be interviewed for this book.
I’ve enjoyed generous support for this project from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University; Scholars-in-Residence Fellowship, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Montgomery Fellowship, Dartmouth College; as well as significant research support from the University of Michigan, New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California. I am deeply indebted to my cofellows at the Schomburg (2000–2001), namely Genna Rae McNeil, Kali Gross, Jacqueline Goldsby, Kim Butler, and Cecilia Green, for making this a better book, and to Colin Palmer for his unparalleled commitment to the fellows program. My week-long stay at Brooklyn College, as the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence, also had a profound impact on this book. My colleagues there, Ellie Hisama, Salim Washington, Ray Allen, Jeff Taylor, as well as Rod and Melanie Bush, provided an engaging intellectual forum for my ideas, not to mention an opportunity to play Monk’s music in front of an audience with a ten-piece band led by Salim! (To have the great trombonist, Frank Lacy, follow my solo on “Pannonica” was one of the greatest thrills of my life.) Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an unwavering champion of this project, kindly invited me to deliver the Nathan Huggins Lectures at Harvard. Although those lectures are to be published soon, the critical engagement I enjoyed from colleagues at Harvard left a deep imprint on Thelonious Monk. Sam Floyd, director of the Center for Black Music Research, published my first piece on Monk in the Black Music Research Journal. Finally, Wynton Marsalis not only entrusted me with the immense task of teaching a course on Thelonious Monk at Jazz at Lincoln Center, but he generously spent a couple of hours of his time speaking with me about Monk’s music. I’m grateful to Nyala Wright and my longtime friend Danielle Bias for coordinating my class at J@LC, and for their enthusiastic support for my work.
I’ve had many opportunities to share work-in-progress and receive critical feedback from colleagues all over the world. The list includes: Fine Arts Faculty Seminar, University of Melbourne, Australia; Postwar History Seminar, Princeton University; UCLA Oral History Program; Claremont Colleges; North Carolina Jazz Festival, University of North Carolina; W. E. B. DuBois Dialogue Series, Center for Black Literature and Culture, University of Pennsylvania; Department of Ethnic Studies and Department of Music, University of California at San Diego; University of California at Santa Cruz; Program in American Culture and the seminar in Comparative Studies in Social Transformation, University of Michigan; American Studies Forum, City University of New York; “Thermodynamic Reading,” with pianist Craig Taborn, Tonic (Lower East Side, New York); History Department, Carnegie Mellon University; Symposium, Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island; W. E. B. DuBois Lecture, George Mason University; Institute for Studies in American Music, Brooklyn College; American Studies Center of the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan; Studio Museum of Harlem; Russell B. Nye Lecture, Michigan State University; Addison Gayle Memorial Lecture, Baruch College, New York; Philosophy on Stage (performance/collaboration with Patrick Pulsinger), Vienna, Austria; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Faculty Research Forum, Mt. Holyoke College; Reed College; Washington University in St. Louis; Northwestern University. Thanks to Beth Coleman, Arno Boehler and Susanne Granzer, Maurice Jackson, Simone W. Davis, Alva Stevenson, Daphne Brooks, Huey Copeland, Valerie Smith, Noliwe Rooks, Robert Reid-Pharr, David Stowe, Tuzyline Jita Allan, Genna Rae McNeil, Gerald Early, Iver Bernstein, Rafia Zafar, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Lowery Sims, David Goodman, Shane White, Graham White, Kosuzu Abe and Katsuyuki Murata, Pancho Savery, Tyler Stovall, and Tukufu Zuberi. Special thanks to my old, old friend Sidney J. Lemelle, who brought me out to Claremont/Pomona a couple of times to talk about Monk and this incredible music.
I cannot reasonably name every friend, acquaintance, and colleague who helped sustain me on this journey or contributed a lead, a reference, some music, or simply a well-timed word of encouragement. Here is a partial list: Jane Andrias, her husband Richard, and their two amazing daughters, Eve and Kate; Wini Breines; Lisa Brock; Paul Buhle; MariJo Buhle; Janaki Bakhle; Nebby Crawford; Michaela Angela Davis; Nick Dirks; Sharon Fitzgerald; Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore; Mawuko Ghanaba; Denise Greene and Emir Lewis; Delverlon Hall; Don Herzog; Tera Hunter; Jerma Jackson; Earl Lewis; Peter Linebaugh; Eric and Liann Hurst Mann; Manning Marable and Leith Mullings; Louis Massiah; Regina Morantz and Geoff Eley; Rene Moreno; Jill Nelson; Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith; Nell Irvin Painter; Mary Louise Patterson; Vijay Prashad; Barbara Ransby and Peter Sporn; Thelma Reyna; John Rockwell; David Roediger; Sherrie Russell-Brown; Jeffrey Sammons; George Sanchez; Julius Scott; Jack Stuart; Akinyele Umoja; Alan Wald; Francille and Ernie Wilson; James Williams; and Komozi Woodard.
Last but certainly not least, I thank my family: my late grandmother, Carmen Chambers; my siblings, Makani Themba-Nixon and her husband Ron Nixon; Meilan Carter and David Gilkey; Chris and Fujiko Kelley; Shannon Patrick Kelley; Benjamin Kelley; Craig Berrysmith; and all their children; my nieces and nephews, Miles and Laura Parish, Kamau Carter, and Brandon Kelley; and my extraordinary mother, Ananda Sattwa, who completed her doctorate the same year I finished Thelonious Monk. And I can never repay Paul Morehouse, for introducing me to this music in the first place. I’m especially indebted to Diedra Harris-Kelley, who saw this project grow from a faint idea to an actual manuscript. She was a constant cheerleader, occasional research assistant, critical reader, and artistic consultant. Much gratitude to Diedra’s mother Annette Rohan and all her sisters—Dorothe, Dolores, Marie, Betsy (Gloria), Sheila, and especially Evelyn Jackson, who transcribed several of my taped interviews; Claudine Allison; Irie Harris and her son Idris; and Claudius Harris, Jr., and his children, Claudius, III, and Jamare.
Elleza Kelley, my brilliant daughter, not only labored one summer as my research assistant, but she continues to teach me how to be a better writer. Hard to believe that she was a few days old when I published my first book; now she is a college student whose literary and artistic talents are unmatched, as far as I’m concerned. When I grow up, I want to be like her.
To my new family: much gratitude to Tina Hamilton for being an endless font of support; to Heidi Hamilton and her kids, Omari and Kela, for their enthusiasm and good advice; to all the Bledsoes and the Blackwells for embracing me and Monk; and the late Mr. Ira Hamilton, who crossed over in January of 2007. Although Monk wasn’t his “cup of tea,” he appreciated the music and was a true jazz cat. And to my new son, Azizi Wilhite Hamilton, I thank him for his curiosity and wonder. The kid knows more about Thelonious Monk than most six-year-olds; he’s the only kid in his first grade class who can play “Blue Monk” on the piano.
I save the last word for my heart, LisaGay Hamilton. For the past four years, she has been my Nellie, and her love and support has been unwavering as I struggled to complete those final chapters. With good humor and the patience of Job, she endured my endless Monk stories, frantic all-night writing sessions, papers and books scattered about the house, and a general grumpiness born of fatigue. But none of this repelled her; on the contrary, LisaGay read every page, asked the hard questions, helped me select photographs, suggested ways to make the story more cinematic, and always, always reminded me that every great work of art is an act of love.