The Story of the Thelonious Monk

In this quote Thelonious Monk is discussing the daily violence that is taking place on the youth  in San Juan Hill, which is where Monk grew up. When he brings up “Black Power” he talks about how it brings vivid memories of the kind of interracial and interracial violence that consumed his neighborhood during his years there. Each block according to Monk in his quote was almost like a different city, each with different rules and lifestyles. There was so much division between people and particularly Blacks and Whites, which led to violent outbreaks and danger in New York.

Because he was subjected to racism all his life, particularly in school, as well as from cops of New York and elsewhere, it had a huge influence on his life as well as his music in the fact that he didn’t want his music to resemble the daily violence and racism that consumed his neighborhood. Monk refused to respond by becoming more race conscious which was the whole idea of the “black power shit” he was referring to in his quote. Monk does not let his troubled background affect his music. In his art Monk creates a new community, an informal and unconventional community bound together by a tolerance for modernity, something he did not have in San Juan Hill, using an unorthodox combination of notes to create and unusual style that defined his style and who he was as an artist.

Another source of Monk’s music came from his piano lessons that he took when he was young. It was another source of inspiration in his village and gave him access to diversity through his Jewish immigrant classical pianists, who introduced Monk to classical music and how to play the piano, another aspect that greatly affected his music and messages. Although it did provide a rough lifestyle San Juan Hill offered Monk something that a family member or anyone else could not, and that was insight and support from music

It seems like in his music Monk was trying to transcend the race and class lines that had separated blacks and whites in his neighborhood. He soon became adopted and adopted the young generation of Blacks and Whites who were rebelling against the structures of American society, creating a community and solidifying his tenure in the Five Spot in 1957. He also had a very serious relationship with Nica (Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild) a famous Jewish jazz player at the time, breaking more boundaries by living what he preached.

While Monk was able to see the racial tensions in his neighborhood and break away from it with his music, the racial 
discrimination during that time seemed to follow him which is seen in Delaware in 1958, where Monk was wrongfully 
arrested. Monk was beat by cops while he was handcuffed and the police unconstitutionally searched without a warrant Nica and arrested her on possession of narcotics, even though Monk was ill. Overall life was not simply just Black and White to Monk like most people thought during those times in New York City. Monk’s music embodies a vision of an artistic soul that would not fall under the social barriers that were taking place in his neighborhood at the time which allowed him to grow as an artist and create the community he wanted to be apart of which solidified his career as one of the legends of jazz.