Thelonious Monk plays jazz piano.He is also the spiritual leader of a cult which goes in for beards, funny hats and loud silences. His playing is in the great jazz tradition—which is why I like it. The cultism goes back to Dizzy Gillespie, the trumpet man, whose beard made bop a sartorial rather than a musical affectation. Thelonious Monk has his affectations,but as Alain once wrote, Le style, c’est le style—a pun which cuts both ways.
I have been listening to Monk’s records and reading some of the things he has said about himself and his music. He is a Negro, which in these troubled times forces on him a sense of responsibility he does not enjoy. Like most of the best jazzmen, however, he doesn’t believe that he must make of his art a sledge hammer to pound away at political themes. “I haven’t done one of those ‘freedom suites,’ ” he has said, “and I don’t intend to. I mean, I don’t see the point. I’m not thinking about the race thing now; it’s not on my mind. Everybody is trying to get me to think it, though, but it doesn’t bother me. It only bugs the people who’re trying to get me to think it.”
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