Read Online The Boy Who Cried Freebird by Mitch Myers - Free Book Online Page B

a Harlem nightclub where manager Teddy Hill and drummer Kenny Clarke were organizing nightly jam sessions.
    Jazz would never be the same.
    Thriving at Minton’s, Clarke and Monk played alongside a number of talented players. Exchanging new musical concepts were pianist-turned-drummer Denzil Best, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Joe Guy, bassist Nick Fenton, and guitarist Charlie Christian. A little later, altoist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker came on board.
    Together, they formed a brash inner circle of bebop revolutionaries. Jazz elders like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Roy Eldridge started dropping in at Minton’s, as did eager players like saxophonist Don Byas, bassist Jimmy Blanton, Monk’s protégé Bud Powell, and a forceful young drummer named Art Blakey.
    Although Monk and Blakey shared a love for bebop, neither fitprecisely into the conventions of the new music that they helped to create. Monk contributed to the fashions of bop with his goatee, beret, and glasses (as well as his hipster vernacular), but his angular piano style was more restrained than the frenetic approach of his peers. As a result, Monk was rarely used at recording sessions, with the bop illuminati opting for the less idiosyncratic piano efforts of Bud Powell or Al Haig.
    Although Art was clearly inspired by Kenny Clarke’s modern drum innovations, he wasn’t as experimental as the elder Clarke—or even as much as another young drummer named Max Roach.
    There were also marked differences between the personalities of Monk and Blakey. Thelonious was emotionally erratic and needed a lot of support. Well insulated, Monk developed much of his musical approach within the confines of his mother’s home. During his “house seminars,” Monk discussed his abstruse theories with eager students like Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, and later, John Coltrane. But Monk was unreliable, arriving late to gigs, falling asleep at the piano, and sometimes not showing up at all.
    Monk’s recording career began with a 1944 session, called Bean and the Boys , accompanying tenor saxophone titan Coleman Hawkins. Thelonious was at his most boppish with Hawkins, playing fast and furious. As the years progressed, his deliberate style grew slower, jagged and sparse. He began implying more on the piano, wandering further behind the beat and using fewer notes.
    Monk’s music embraced irregular rhythms and had an internal harmony all its own. His compositions were as peculiar as his piano technique, and some of Monk’s tunes were just too tricky for his fellow musicians to play. Due to an unfortunate and controversial drug bust in 1951, Thelonious lost his cabaret card, which severely restricted his opportunities to perform in Manhattan.
    Art Blakey, on the other hand, was a hardworking drummer whomade his name as a bandleader and a worldwide ambassador of jazz. Not innovative like Monk, Dizzy, or Bird, Art’s style was more direct, compensating with incredible strength, excellent listening skills, and a superb sense of dynamics. His group, the Jazz Messengers, became a virtual finishing school for many young musicians.
    However different, Monk and Blakey had much in common. Both men recorded their bandleader debuts on Blue Note Records in 1947. The LP edition of Monk’s Genius of Modern Music (Volume I) collected his 78 rpm singles and introduced epic compositions like “’Round Midnight” and “Ruby, My Dear.”
    Monk’s debut also featured Art Blakey, as Art was the pianist’s most favored drummer. Thelonious took Art under his wing soon after the drummer moved to New York. And just as Monk had done with Bud Powell, Thelonious made sure that Art was welcome to play at various jam sessions in the city.
    Art Blakey appeared on more Monk recordings than any other drummer until the end of the 1950s—including Monk’s groundbreaking work on the Prestige and Riverside