Monk: He Played the Harmonica; & A Mystery Melody SOLVED

(Paying Subscribers, at the bottom you will find an entire page of a Black newspaper from 1930, with news about a racist lawsuit, an all-Black opera directed by Clarence Williams, Duke Ellington on the radio, and much more!)

Here’s a tidbit about Thelonious Monk that’s not well known, and not included in my friend Robin Kelley’s outstanding biography. Monk played harmonica as a youth, well enough that he entered a little contest! Here’s the announcement in the Black newspaper Amsterdam News from March 5, 1930, when Monk was 12 (he turned 13 on October 10).

We don’t know anything about Edward Parker, but Kelley does mention the Center in strong terms, saying that “Besides his mother, the most important influence on Monk’s early development as a musician and as a young man wasn’t a person but an institution – the Columbus Hill Neighborhood Center (renamed the Columbus Hill Community Center in 1933).” This no longer exists, but my former graduate student Cherise Harris determined that the Kips and Children’s Aid organizations mentioned in the article above still exist, at new addresses.

Peter Keepnews, a jazz historian and son of Monk’s important record producer Orrin Keepnews, has written that Monk’s father, Thelonious Sr., played blues and train sounds on the harmonica. Peter observed that “Train sounds would later occupy a prominent place in the Thelonious Monk oeuvre; indeed, he built entire compositions around pianistic versions of such sounds — notably ‘Little Rootie Tootie.’ …The open chords characteristic of the harmonica found a frequent echo in Monk’s writing and playing.” (From his Village Voice article “Young Monk,” reprinted in a useful book.) And of course Monk also wrote a tune called “Locomotive.”

And the blues was hugely important in Monk’s music. Of his approximately 70 surviving compositions, about 10 are blues, and the blues is also a “color,” if you will, in much of his work. So the discovery that Monk played harmonica as a youth makes sense, and has significance both in the context of his family and in his musical development.

While you’re here, I want to share with you a little mystery melody that has been stuck in my head for many years. I believe it’s an excerpt from one of the improvisations on a Monk recording, but I’m really not sure. It might have nothing to do with Monk! Below is the music notation, as well as audio of me playing it on the keyboard. If you recognize it, let me know please. (SOLVED—see below.)

SOLVED: Composer and clarinetist Evan Ziporyn, a subscriber, recognized that this is the bridge of Keith Jarrett’s great tune “Backhand,” which you can hear at this link! For your convenience, here is the relevant passage, slowed down a bit for comparison with my playing above, which was just the first few seconds of this:

All the best to you and yours!
Lewis