Monk: A Funny "Backstory" About the Time Magazine Article! PHOTO ADDED!,+ Bonus

And the Complete Article for Paying Subscribers

(UPDATE: I added a photo of Monk at the hotel in 1964—scroll down!!)

(Note: Paying subscribers, your gift is at the bottom, as usual.)

It’s well known that it is a big deal to be on the cover of the magazine Time. Among jazz artists, that honor had gone first, appropriately, to Louis Armstrong in 1949. Dave Brubeck, in 1954, was the second one. (No, Brubeck was not the first—more on him in a later post.) Then, Time featured Duke Ellington (in a story that was, by the way, already planned before his 1956 Newport Jazz Festival appearance), followed by Thelonious Monk in 1964, and Wynton Marsalis in 1990. (Wynton’s portrait was tied to an article about the state of jazz, not to a feature just about him.)

Here is the cover of the Monk issue:

Today I’ll share with you the “behind the scenes” story of the Monk piece, thanks to my old friend Bert Vuijsje, a distinguished jazz journalist based in Amsterdam. This story has never before appeared in English. Here’s what Bert says:

Time Magazine, Monk and me

In February 1964, I was a 21-year-old physics student, about to get my bachelor’s degree. But for about a year, I had also served as the jazz critic for the prominent Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland, sort of a cross between The New Republic and New York Magazine.

On Saturday, February 15, Thelonious Monk was going to give a midnight concert at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, his second visit to Holland after his two concerts in 1961. (The April 1961 concert is easy to find, but the second one, from May, is only available on the Dutch Jazz Archive CD Jackie-ing in the series Jazz at the Concertgebouw. I was one of the producers, and I also wrote the text in the booklet.)

I later learned that Time Magazine had planned, and completed, a cover story on Thelonious Monk for late November 1963, but the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, in Dallas, Texas, inevitably forced the magazine to postpone it. It was rescheduled for the issue of February 28, 1964, and Time Magazine being the super-proud and super-rich publication that it was, the editors decided the cover story should be updated with news of Monk's current European tour. Therefore, I understand, Time correspondents all over Europe were instructed to cover his concerts and, if possible, to interview Monk.

The Dutch Time correspondent, Friso Endt, a well-known and respected news reporter who apparently didn't feel confident writing about jazz, asked me if I would do the job for him. I naturally said yes.

I was told that an interview had been arranged for Saturday afternoon at the Amsterdam Krasnapolsky Hotel, so at the appointed time of 3.00 p.m., I entered a large, slightly sleazy hotel suite. I saw Monk sitting on a large couch, with his wife Nellie close by. He was being interviewed, believe it or not, for a hospital radio station, an extremely small-time endeavour. How they had managed to get access to Thelonious Monk is still a mystery to me. The interviewer, his recorder running, was a total amateur who asked the most trivial, stereotypical questions. 

Nellie Monk whispered to me that I should wait until the radio interviewer was finished, so I patiently sat down. The man took another ten minutes, and by the time he was finished Monk, still sitting on the couch, had fallen asleep — understandable under the circumstances. In a soft voice, Nellie Monk suggested that we should let her husband get his rest, and I could only agree, so I left.

What to do after this fiasco? The only thing I could think of was writing a factual report of what happened. I decided to include Monk's single interesting response to the stupid questions from the radio man. And so it happened that the cover story on Thelonious Monk in the U.S.A. edition of Time Magazine of February 28, 1964 contained, on page 87 (page 45 in the Atlantic edition), my contribution. It ran just four short lines, plus one word, in printed form:

Interview on an Amsterdam radio station last week: "Who has had the greatest influence on your playing, Mr. Monk?" "Well, me, of course."

It became the most famous and most often quoted part of the entire article.

If I remember correctly, my fee was something like 150 guilders, about 50 dollars at the time. For 23 words of copy, this must have been my best paid gig ever.

Bert Vuijsje

Great story, yes?! Thank you, Bert! And here is the relevant page—Bert’s portion is in the first (left) column:

UPDATE: Bert managed to find a photo of Monk on the couch that he mentioned!!

Bert was not present when it was taken, but it is the same couch and the photo is from Monk’s 1964 visit to the hotel. And by the way, the historic Krasnapolsky Hotel where Monk stayed is still very much active.

See you again soon!

All the best,

Lewis

(Paying subscribers, scroll down please for the complete article, plus the editor’s introduction with stories from the cover artist and the author about their experiences with Monk.)