Blog Post 4: Thelonious Monk, Jazz, and Community

            Thelonious Monk was heavily influenced by the community in which he grew up, a neighborhood in New York known as San Juan Hill.  According to Robin Kelley, San Juan Hill had a reputation for being a dangerous place with rampant violence between different racial groups.  As he states, “a reporter noted that the police in the vicinity ‘expect at least one small riot on the Hill…each week’” (page 17).  Black schoolchildren travelled in groups by necessity, and even at schools with a primarily black population they were bullied by white students and teachers alike.  The need to band together in order to protect themselves from others instilled in black residents “a strong sense of community” (page 20).  Geraldine Smith, another resident of the neighborhood, describes it as “a little village” in which “everybody knew everybody” (page 20).  Finally, music was an important aspect of life in San Juan Hill, so much so that residents “recalled hearing music constantly in the hallways and in the streets” (page 19) and “every household had an instrument” (page 20).  Leimert Park had a similar set of circumstances, from the violence to the tense racial landscape to the strong sense of community and importance of both music and community gatherings to everyday life.

            Monk was influenced by each of these aspects of his community.  From the time he and his family moved to San Juan Hill when he was a very small, he heard the music played by his neighbors, and it is likely that this is what sparked his passion for music.  In addition, he was surrounded by the blended culture of Southerners and West Indians and thus absorbed the musical traditions of both the American South and the Caribbean.  Kelley states, “One can certainly hear explicit Caribbean rhythms in some of Monk’s original compositions” (page 23).  In other words, Monk’s particular musical genius was spawned in part from unique a combination of diverse musical traditions and was informed by his experiences growing up in such a rough environment, which allow him to explore dissonance and more complex harmonies than many mainstream musicians would venture towards.

            Thelonious Monk did not exist in a vacuum, and neither does jazz.  Art forms such as jazz provide a way for members of a community to express their experiences and emotions, and in doing so connect with others with similar experiences; they a form of communication.  Jazz came out of a community which valued spontaneity, creativity, and originality.  This community was in a constant state of oppression—as it was allowed very few outlets for creative expression, those that it did find it attacked with incredible passion.  For this community, music was an essential part of life; it was integrated into almost every social occasion.  Without this unique condition, jazz never would have been able to blossom and grow in the way that it did.  It is a product of the life experiences of those who make it, on which the community they belong to has a huge influence.  It is also a product of those who listen to it, as they have considerable sway over which trends die and which innovations endure simply by choosing which records they like best.  It is like a conversation, in which the musicians hold their hearts out to the audience saying “how do you like that?”  and if they audience says “hallelujah” they keep on playing that way, but if the audience says “hell no,” they tweak it a bit before throwing it back.  Since every musician and every audience on Earth is different due to the incredible variety of life, every musical conversation will have a different outcome.  Only New York could have produced what eventually came out of Thelonious Monk, and Monk could only have come from New York.

Commented on Mark Samet