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.”