 Welcome to the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. I am your host, Gwendolyn Harris. Today, we will be taking a look at an American jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk, who had a unique improvisation and style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire. My guest today, Dr. Catherine Waddell-Cutacara and Mr. James Harbor, each are well known throughout Hawaii and will be helping me to discuss the music of Thelonious Monk. Let me tell you a little about my guest. Dr. T'Kara earned her PhD in political science and an MA and BA in French. She is a recognized scholar, celebrated intellectual, and performance artist, and has given poetry readings in Bordeaux, France, Abidjan Cote, Davor Niamin, Niger, and around the United States. She is the owner and publisher of Pacific Raven Press, LLC, which has published 18 titles. Mr. James Harbor has been working in the radio and television industry for over 30 years, starting in Chicago, then California, and ending up here in Oahu for over three decades working at radio and television stations. He is the producer of his own podcast, Jazz Intersection. Let's welcome Dr. T'Kara and Mr. Harbor to the show. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. I am so glad to have you guys here, because I'm out of my norm today. I want you to know. But this is going to be a learning experience for me. And in learning about Mr. Thelonious Monk, he was something else. Something else? He was something else. He was a pioneer. Yes, he was. Can you guys tell me, who is this Thelonious Monk? Well, Thelonious was one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. He was in the category with John Coltrane. Art Blakely and a bunch of them. But the main thing is he was a pioneer in first creators of the modern jazz and bebop. And Thelonious's interesting background with him. He learned how to play when he was 11, I think. But he learned from his sister, looking over her shoulder as she played. And then he went to Juilliard, believe it or not. And that's where he got all his education. And then he got out on the loop and playing at the Apollo. So he was playing at the Apollo, and he won so much, they stopped him from coming there. But he's an unusual type player, because he still plays stride, which is with that left hand. And he's an extraordinary person with all kind of, they call him eccentric, because he was, he liked to dance when he played. They'd be playing and he'd be dancing. I read that, yes. Then he'd come back and play, catch up. But he was an extraordinary guy. And I like to Catherine give a little about what she thought about him. Well, he's from the South, and I'm from the South. He's from North Carolina. And his parents, I think, were very unique. His father was a musician. And he started playing music actually very young, about four or five. By the time he was eight, he was playing for public things. And by the time he was 12 or 13, he went on tour, I guess, with the church. And he played with like a revival church. And he played the organ and he played the piano. And then he went to this fancy school in New York with a Bedford style. Yeah, Bedford style. And he quit and went on the road at a very early age. And that takes a lot of courage and a lot of dedication, I guess you could say. And his parents apparently let him do it. My parents would never have let me do that. But he must have been with people that they trusted. Right, yeah. Now how did he get his name? Because I know you wanted to talk a little bit about how he got his name. That's a very unique name. Yes, his name actually is Thelonious Sphere like the star's monk. And Thelonious, I looked it up, is a Latin derivative. And it means bold, it means lord. I think that was very appropriate, lord because that's what he became in the piano thing. But there are other meanings to Thelonious. The Bohemian name refers to artistic or political person and but with spiritual qualities. And then it also refers to an attitude which is a lot of cool, which is distinctive and a bit badass. And that describes him to the T, to the T. I read where his style was not really appreciated by some people. And the poet and jazz critic Phillip Larkin dismissed him as the elephant on the keyboard. Now I watched him, I was going through YouTube and seeing all this. I don't know where this guy got this from because Thelonious, just what you said through his name, he was bad. He was bad. He was bad. It was bad. And he also had a very unique style of dress. Did you want to talk about that? Well, he liked pork pie hats. And he had all different kinds of styles of hats, flat, curved, wax, I mean, all kinds. But he liked them small, as you can see on the monitor. He liked small pork pie. He liked to wear glasses. Sometime he put you on, he didn't really wear glasses. But at one time he's at a recording session and he had on these glasses. And the producer asked, oh, hey, where did you get those glasses? He said, they're invisible. These are invisible glasses, you know. So that's the type of guy he was. But he was very centering as we're going along and knowing about his history. He ended up having, he would become bipolar, you know. But he was extraordinary. His whole work playing the piano and getting gigs was about his family, you know, taking care of economics. That was the whole thing, you know. That's what I admired so much about him. He was a family man. Yes, he had his two children, his boy and his daughter. And he was home when he wasn't playing music. But one thing about his style that was curious to me was whereas most people play the piano with the, with the lifted, you know, he would just flat-handed, bam, bam, bam. And then he would not only favor the right or the left, but he would be able to balance both. Whereas a lot of the jazz musicians, they would favor one side or the other. And then he would do a lot of scales. And he would do a lot of pauses. And that's what threw people off was his pauses and his silent times. They just didn't know what to do with them. What to expect. Yeah. And even now, even now, a lot of people, when they hear him, they might be a little off. You know, what is, what is he doing? You know, give an example. I had a radio show here years ago and I had this young man doing the board for me. And he had never been involved in jazz, but he would, you know, he never said anything to me about it. But then one day when I played Monk, after the record went off, he came out and said, who was that? I said, Thelonious Monk. He said, that was great. And it was just, you know, it's kind of like, how did he know, you know, but he plays with such feeling, you know? And the style that he plays with is just, nobody else plays like him. Let's put it like that. Nobody, he has his own, he's in the game where he says, if you want to do what you want to do, do what you want to do. Be like you want to be. And that's what, that's the style he was playing. Now he was one of five jazz musicians that were on the cover of Time Magazine. That's back in the day. That was back in the day. One of five. And the other ones that were on the magazine were Louis Armstrong, Dave Brobeck, Duke Ellington, and Wynton Marcellus. Right, right, that's right. And he was very close and admirable with Duke Ellington. And they did a lot of collaborations together. And that was great. In addition to the more bebop kind of people, Ellington was so classy. And I think that it was said that he was the second most productive composer. We think of him as just playing the piano, but when it comes to composing, that's its own special thing. Right, right. Now I know James, you and I had a conversation maybe a couple of days ago. We were talking about the smooth jazz What was that conversation that we had? You said, this is where it came from. Is that what you told me? Yes, it all. Go ahead and explain that. Smooth jazz, I'm going to put smooth jazz, it started out being a marketable thing. What's his name? Kenny G. Kenny G. He's the bread of it. But then it was based on vocals though. You name the vocalist, what's her name? You name them, that's how they started. They started with the smooth jazz. And then the instruments came in. And but all the music, all the jazz, so-called jazz music came from blues. And all of them have played blues. John Coltrane, that's how they started, you know. Matter of fact, John Coltrane used to play in the bar and stand up on the bar blowing his horn, you know, playing the blues. But they needed to work, right? So, hey, that's where you go. And that's how I started. I started listening to blues. I'm from Chicago. So, I would go down to the corner. And almost every other corner was a blues bar. Wow. And you could hear the blues all night long. Well, they say that Chicago is the city for the blues and the jazz music. Yeah, you could hear blues all night long. But that's where it all started. It started a ragtime and then the blues. Well, gospel in between, you understand what I'm saying? But that's where it all came from. And then mostly they were playing a progressive jazz. And then that's when Coltrane and was still there. Miles? No. Well, Miles was in that. He was in that loop. But I'm lost today. But anyway, they were the ones that started bebop with Dizzy Gillespie and all that. So that changed the style. That changed the style. Where swing was in big time. You could get out there dancing. Cap, caliber, bass, all those. That was in big time. And then they changed the modality of the music, which made it more expressive. Yes. And then another thing about Monk was, for his blues songs, of which he did, he would do a lot in B Minor. He played a lot in B Minor. And people would say, well, get out of that. And so a lot of his actual songs have blues written in the title. Yeah. So that was interesting also. Most modern jazz players, and I guess she can say a lot of smooth jazz players now, too, if some of them have identifiable tones. And that's with Monk. When you hear Monk, you know that's Monk. You know that's him. Exactly. When you hear John Coltrane, you know that's him. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Well, we're going to go on a quick break. But don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Aloha. I'm Stan Osterman, a host here on Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness here on the island. We are a Hawaiian nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to thinktechawai.com and make a donation to support us now. Mahalo. Aloha. This is Scott Perry. And I'm the host of Let's Talk Hawaii at Think Tech Hawaii. In this show, we're going to be speaking in English and Japanese. And I'm going to use my 30 years of experience to help many Japanese viewers improve their English skills, as well as learning many interesting things about Hawaii. You can catch my show every other Tuesday, 3 p.m. Hawaii time. See you then. Aloha, and welcome back to the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. Today, we are talking about Thelonious Monk, the man and the music. And I have here today with me Dr. Catherine Waddell-Tukara and Mr. James Harbour. So welcome back. Thank you. This is so interesting for me. Now we were talking about the life earlier, the first part. We were talking about the life of Thelonious Monk. You guys are going to be having an upcoming event. And we're going to talk about that in a few minutes. But I want Catherine to talk about this Afrofuturism. What is that? Well, you know, it came to me through a graduate student of mine who's now a professor. And it was fairly recently. And he said, you are an Afrofuturist. And I said, what? And he said, yes. But what I think it really means is you're rooted in tradition, but you have this vision that transcends the present. And it includes, I think, all parts of oneself. It is emotional. It is intellectual. It involves the moving. And it's spiritual, all of those things. And usually, with Afrofuturism, it's something that someone starts in the past. No one is understanding it at all. And then, however many years later, it suddenly becomes invoked. It suddenly becomes understood that everyone is doing it. But meanwhile, the visionary was the one that had it. I wrote that it was creatively centered and it was community-oriented in a way in that the vision includes not only the self and the parts of the self, but also expanding to the community. And with real futurism, it's not only our personal, ethnic, or racial community, but it goes to the national community and the international community. And as we know, Monk traveled in Japan and Europe and extensively and he had as many artists who usually don't have a lot of money, he had what do you call it, a patron. And she was a baroness. And she stuck with him through thick and thin. And she was good friends with his wife, so it worked even until his dying time. She was there. I forget her name is hard to pronounce. Nellie, Nellie. Nellie, that was the wife's name. His wife's name. Oh, you're talking about the patroness. Yeah, the patroness. So it was just interesting that he had a European type patron, which again, Langston used all of the, at that time in particular, but that she saw his value and she went and said, hey, you're not, because he lost his license, remember his capillary license. And she went to all these people and she said, he's a genius. You'd better have him. You'd better have him. And she was of course persuasive being a Caucasian woman. Right. So, yeah, visionary ideas and expressions and it's internal and external. I think Afrofuturism includes the heart and the soul as well as, as I said, reaching out beyond oneself to nurture that, and it's got a lot of vibrancy, a lot of difference, a lot of inspiration and it's different. And the last thing I want to say about it is it's dynamic and it also has a psychological dimension when it comes to monk, because he was deep. He was mathematical, he was psychological. He was all of these things. He understood it, yeah. So, yeah, ahead of his time, Afrofuturism. Well, tell us about this upcoming event. James. Well, the event, jazz and Afrofuturism, the music of Thelonious Monk in film and live entertainment. How it all started was, Catherine and I, I've been knowing Catherine a long time and how I met Catherine was I came here in 87 and, you know, as a black person here, you do like you do anywhere else. You go looking for black people, you know? So I asked, who was who, and they told me about Catherine. I went up to the school at the University of Hawaii and met her, so we've been friends ever since. So I have this film called In My Mind, featuring Jason Moran and his band called The Bandwagon. And it was sent to me through a lady who is the producer and from, I forget where it's from now, but anyway, she sent me to wonder if I could show it here. And I said, okay, but I had it a long time and it's never been shown here in Hawaii, never. You can pick up a little tidbits on the YouTube but it's never been shown here, you know? So I told Catherine, I said, Catherine, I got this film. I want to show this film and, oh, okay. So why don't we do this, you know? And we got four talented people here. We got the poor, we got this beautiful dancer and- Sequoia. Right. And then we have this horn player who is outstanding. You know, Jason plays everywhere, right? And then I and I, Nita, he's born and raised here. And he's, both of them have CDs. Aaron and I, Nita plays nothing but his music. He writes all his music and he has two CDs, three CDs out, but he's outstanding piano player. And once you hear him, you'll see what I mean. And he can, he can, you hear Monk and him, you know? Really? Right, right. So we put this together and, you know? Catherine will be doing some poetry. Poetry. And Sequoia will dance. And you're going to be the MC. I'll do my best. And I know Jason is going to play and I'm just looking forward to that event. I know you've been talking about it for a long time. And I'm just looking forward to that event. Now I know, Catherine, that you have a little poem for us. I do. It's called Moon Jazz, the one I'm going to share. And it's, it goes, is there such a thing as a girl of little consequence? Is it of little consequence that green love walked into the winter announcing like a poet? This song is for you, sweet and lovely. Dancing on the ceiling like the riffs of a music man. The girl came woman in his arms full of moon glow and metaphor jamming music of Monk, Coltrane, Mingus and more. Too late, too late. She told every star when feelings reappeared from the shadows of a remembered tune. Maturities morning effaced the star dreams, joy paused, caught in a net of time. Still, she remembered melancholy music like whales spouting on the horizon of tomorrow's hope. Singing like whales in spite of military corruption of ocean with sonar blasts disoriented, some retreated, fled or beached themselves. The young woman child rode the wind currents listening for sounds of freedom, a melody of compassion under a Carolina moon. Jazz reappeared like improv, light as a blue breeze, soft as a star filled night, intense as a Pacific sunset, discordant as a little girl come woman still of little consequence. Beautiful. That was beautiful. Now for all of you that do not know Dr. Takara, she writes all her poetry. She has books that are out. Why don't you go ahead and tell where they can find your stuff? Okay, well it's best if you get it from Pacific Raven Press, my company, because that way I get a little bit more. If it goes on Amazon, you could get it on Amazon, but Amazon takes about 60%. And so I always encourage people to come to P.O. Box 678 Ka'a'Ava Pacific Raven Press and I will mail it out the day that I get your order. I have about eight books of poetry and they vary in price. So the best way to know what you're getting is to send me an email or go on Facebook or something and I can respond and they range anything. My newest one coming up is on the volcano. So it's eco poetry, but it ranges from Alabama poetry to Zimbabwe, Africa, to China, places that I've traveled. And I love playing with words and I'm quite the nature fanatic, if you will. So yeah. Yes, she is. Okay, okay. And James, where can they listen to you? For those of you that don't know, James has his own podcast, so go ahead and tell about that. Yes, I've been doing my podcast for 14 years and it's called thejazzintersection.org. And I started in, well 14 years, but I started, I was on Kumu for two and a half years independently and I run out of money. So I decided, what am I gonna do now? So I was reading a fortune magazine and it was in 203 and that's when it talked about podcasting. And I said, oh, I mean, I can do this, stay at home and it go all over the world. So that's what I did. I love every minute of it. I love every minute of it. So I do interviews, I do, you name it, but I've been loving jazz all my life. And you guys should tune in sometime, check me out at thejazzintersection.org, okay? Tune in and you can see both of these people at their event, which is the, go ahead and what's the date of it? The June 29th. June 29th, next weekend. June 29th. So come on out to that event. I will be there, we'll see these two lovely people there. Here's some music and there's gonna be food. There's gonna be a lot of fun. Food is complimentary. Wow, you heard that? Food is complimentary. Complimentary, so just come on out and have some fun. And you wanna listen to some good jazz, listen to some poetry, see some dancing. Just come on out. I'm looking forward to it. And meet good people, meet good people. That's what it's all about, you know? Not only we're spreading music, but we wanna spread some love, you know what I mean? Get everybody together, even if you don't know the person, you know, everybody, hey, yeah, that's right. And understand that we're there to try to enlighten. Correct, nice. Well, I will definitely be there. And I hope to see you guys there. This ends our show today for the Hawaii Smooth Jazz Connection. I wanna thank both of you, Dr. Katharine Waddell-Takara and Mr. James Harbour for being here on this show. And I hope to have you back again soon. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, it's very wonderful. To all my viewers, I hope to see you at this event next week. But until then, aloha and God bless.