Thelonious Monk - Round About Midnight

following your reasoning Picasso was just a bad painter who couldn't draw a straight face...
I think that Monk's music wants to represent absurdity, ugliness, complexity. I can not think of a technique better than his for the purpose. Or perhaps you can suggest a better fingering style to hit a cluster of notes with all your strength.

Wow some of you are crazy.

Monk always played with a very percussive tone. It's how he chose to express himself on the instrument. Any piano tech or player will acknowledge that the players touch on the piano has as much to do with his sound as anything else.

@ Staffy - All the jazz players I know love monk so I don't know where you get that

@ Virtuosic - You don't get it man. He revolutionized jazz harmony and rhythm on the piano. He also wrote a ton of great tunes that are still around.

@Flanning
In Monk's time, he was very underappreciated because many bebop musicians saw his technique as "bad"

On the other hand, there were many musicians that recognized his talent (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie), but they ended up using many of his music and compositions, and profiting from them while Monk continued struggling w/ his financial life.

Nowadays though, I would say many people are beginning to recognize his talent.

@johnthirteenmusic the debate about individual pianists creating distinctive tone on a particular instrument is also debated among piano technicians. opinions differ. It is a fact, however, that engaging the soft pedal will change the tone. So in that, at least, there is an element of control.

Honestly if the best thing you can think to say is that he has "bad" technique, you really don't understand what jazz is about. Jazz is a music of reality, it tells you like it is. Manicured fingers in a perfect fingering pattern is so much less important that what hes actually saying in his music. Too many people see two-dimensionally; look past you silly rules of music and see the human inside this piece of art.

I agree with you. You can't copy Monk. He is unique. Fantastic Music.

hey man i agree with you in all what you saying and a think monk is wonderfull but i have a question... i dont have anything with monk's play (talking about hands) but why he played like that ?

but then there is something i do not rly undersand: u say the fingering is not that important in jazz and the greatest jazz musicians became hat famous becuase of the way of expression they were able to do, but then i do not understand why art tatum , peterson and some others became famous because of their intense finger tecnique

Excuse me for the fact that I'm not continuing the technical discussion about the way his fingers move over the keyboard, but I just have the following thing to say:

Venturing out on the borders of musical ingenuity and looking down for miles in the depths it leaves behind in it's ascend, this performance is simply out of this world and into the next.

No wonder I really enjoyed him playing^^

Virtuosic1 sounds like an uncle tom to me. Don't subject yourself to willie lynch brotha. You are most definitely entitled your own opinion. However, monk universally penetrates any orthodox formalities of music and soul expression. Since when is the lack of technique a detriment? The man was a genius hands down, so lets not speak ill of the dead.