The Genius of Jazz

            Before the start of this class I saw the history of jazz as a revolutionary occurrence that represented the rise of creating new music and dance that went against society’s norms.  It created a subculture in society, music, and dance, from which some people shied away because of their fear of change.  Through jazz, blacks trying to make name for themselves by expressing their culture through music and dance.  I was informed on only the general idea of the rise of jazz, but I did not know much about any specifics.  I knew that I liked the sound and the culture surrounding jazz, swing, ragtime, and bebop, but I could not quantify what differentiated the different styles, nor what led to their creation. 

            However, when I started learning about jazz this quarter, I realized how much I did not know. I was blissfully unaware of the variance of histories that led to the rise of jazz, starting in African music and really taking off in New Orleans and branching off in Kansas City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.  Jazz grew and transformed into different styles based on the variety of influences of the cities and people who loved jazz.  This class opened my eyes up to the truly rich and diverse history that allowed my appreciation for jazz as a musical style to develop and mature.

            The concept of “genius” was described by Samuel Johnson as “like fire in the flint, only to be produced by collision with a proper subject, it is the business of every man to try whether his faculties may not happily cooperate with his desires.” He explained that genius emerges when it finds its proper subject.  However Dr. Stewart revised this viewpoint when he posited that, “genius emerges when it finds its proper context, environment, audience.” Genius in art is always best in cohesion with community, in a dialogue with a particular community, or a specific time and space (Lecture 1/29).  This community was found in jazz’s move from New Orleans to Chicago, the move from an integrated America to a intensely and incredibly segregated America with a more robust community of industrialism.  This community gave birth to the first jazz super star because it was the perfect context for a genius to emerge from.             

             My definition of the concept of “genius” has changed through my participation in this class. The jazz genius shapes the community, just as the community shapes the genius. The perfect example of this is Thelonious Monk’s genius. “Much of Monk’s genius lay precisely in this ability to juxtapose the simple and complex, a talent he applied in many…ways” (Gioia 243).  This juxtaposition and individuality was something that was inherent in Monk because of his childhood in New York’s San Juan Hill, a neighborhood with great diversity and energy, a combination of which shaped Monk’s personality.  In return, Monk’s distinctive style and unique take fostered a community around his character and produced a new generation of the young and rebellious, the Beat generation.

Thelonious Monk's Community

          Thelonious Monk was born and brought up in San Juan Hill, a neighborhood in the middle of Manhattan, New York.  It was very small and intimate; with close-set apartments and an almost family-like community.  San Juan Hill was known for its diversity, as well as its violent tendencies. “There’s no reason why I should go through that Black Power shit now. I guess everybody in New York had to do that, right? Because every block is a different town. It was mean all over New York, all the boroughs. Then, besides fighting the ofays, you had to fight each other. You go to the next block and you’re in another country” (Kelley 19).  In saying this, Monk alludes to that mixture of cultures, and the atmosphere of violence that accompanied such a variety of people living so close together. Kelley described the area as containing one country for every block.

            In such a community with a myriad of ethnicities, there also came a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. This atmosphere came about as a result of the exposure to so many cultures, as did a certain energy that lent itself to jazz.  With the open and enthusiastic celebration of such differing cultures, and that energy, there came competition. The interracial mixing, but also fighting, that went on in that area of New York created a musical heterodoxy in Monk’s work.  His offbeat and avante garde way of playing was modern & eccentric; he had a very individualistic and idiosyncratic style that was clearly influenced by his diverse surroundings.  San Juan Hill was much too small for comfortable living, but Monk could not afford to move out, and so he was in the belly of the neighborhood, which itself was in the belly of New York; he couldn’t avoid the influence of such a city (Stewart lecture).

            Monk’s transcendence of race can be summarized in the interview in which he insisted “that he doesn’t think about race but rather sees himself as an American. But being an American…“doesn’t prevent me from being aware of all the progress that still needs to be made…I know my music can help bring people together, and that’s what’s important” (Kelley 335).  He did not focus on the problem of racism, but overcame it in his dedication to making jazz music, as he saw it as a way to eventually lead to a “friendship” of cultures in the United States.  Kelly writes, as Larry Ridley recalled, “contrary to that attempt to portray him as some people did as weird or whatever, he was a very bright and brilliant person....  I remember telling Thelonious how I was sick of whites calling us ‘boys’ and stuff like that.  He said, ‘Ain't no drag, Larry, because everybody wants to be young’” (Kelley 417).  

            As Monk was subjected to racism, especially from the cops of New York and elsewhere, the loss of his cabaret card and his arrest in Delaware with Nica, he still refused to respond by becoming more race conscious.  This added a poignancy to his stance in that it only strengthened his resolve to stay out of the race conversation and speak through his music only. As Dr. Stewart said in lecture, “His success in transcending race and class lines is perhaps embodied in his affectionate relationship with Nica (Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild), but also the way in which he adopted and became adopted by a young generation of Blacks and Whites who were rebelling against the strictures of American society.”

            Monk’s music captivated a freethinking community that was not solely black. It exemplified the concept of a new community of “artistic souls” that rebelled against middle class conventionality.  “That community was very small at first, but grew and blossomed, and laid the ground for his tenure at the Five Spot in 1957, where the owners said Monk could be there ‘as long as he wanted’” (Stewart lecture).   This community embraced him any others with open arms and a yearning for individuality as well as a intrinsic sense of belonging.  According to Dr. Stewart, “Monk used his art to create a new community, a bohemian community bound together by a tolerance for modernity, for dissonance in music and for the avant garde in art and life.”