Monk, Thelonious (1917–1982)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Thelonious Monk ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Greenwich Village ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Duke Ellington ◽  
Charlie Parker ◽  
52Nd Street

Thelonious Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. One of the earliest performers in the bebop movement of modern jazz dating from the mid-twentieth century, namely the 1940s in New York City, Monk performed original compositions in neighborhoods there such as Harlem and Greenwich Village, as well as the thriving 52nd Street district of jazz nightclubs. The pianist performed with other leading figures in modern jazz including bebop progenitors Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and avant-garde saxophonist John Coltrane, all of whom performed and recorded Monk’s compositions. Monk’s compositions are some of the most commonly performed jazz standards today. Giddins and DeVeaux (2009) argue that Monk’s compositions are the second most frequently performed standards written by any one composer in jazz today, after those of pianist and big-band leader Duke Ellington.

The History of Jazz

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Gioia
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Thelonious Monk ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Jazz Music ◽  
Miles Davis ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
History Of ◽  
Charlie Parker

The History of Jazz, 3rd edition, is a comprehensive survey of jazz music from its origins until the current day. The book is designed for general readers and students, as well as those with more specialized interest in jazz and music history. It provides detailed biographical information and an overview of the musical contributions of the key innovators in development of jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and others. The book also traces the evolution of jazz styles and includes in-depth accounts of ragtime, blues, New Orleans jazz, Chicago jazz, swing and big band music, bebop, hard bop, cool jazz, avant-garde, jazz-rock fusion, and other subgenres and developments. The volume also provides a cultural and socioeconomic contextualization of the music, dealing with the broader political and social environment that gave birth to the music and shaped its development—both in the United States and within a global setting.

Gillespie, Dizzy (1917–93)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Big Band ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Small Band ◽  
Latin Jazz ◽  
Charlie Parker ◽  
Artistic Career

Dizzy Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Over the course of his artistic career Gillespie was based in New York City, where he was first active performing in big bands, eventually leading bands of his own. Along with his musical colleague, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, Gillespie was one of the progenitors of the modern jazz movement bebop in the 1940s. Considered one of the pioneers of Latin jazz, especially Afro-Cuban jazz, Gillespie traveled extensively, performing with an international roster of musicians. Compositions that reflect this style of jazz include "Tin Tin Deo," and "Manteca" (1947). Gillespie’s musical orientation to Afro rhythms was evident as early as 1942, when he composed the jazz standard "A Night in Tunisia." When he dissembled his big band to form a sextet in 1949, Gillespie gave modern jazz tenor saxophonist John Coltrane his start in improvisational focussed small band work.

Modern Jazz

2021 ◽  
pp. 237-326
Author(s):  
Ted Gioia
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
World War ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Thelonious Monk ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Charlie Parker

The rise of modern jazz—or “bebop” as it was called—dramatically changed the landscape of the music in the 1940s, transforming the genre into a truly progressive and experimental idiom. But this came at a cost, marking a shift from jazz’s predominance as a popular music, and turning it into an art music addressing a much smaller audience. This chapter looks at the innovations of the leading bebop musicians, especially Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. Other artists addressed include Bud Powell, Lennie Tristano, Sarah Vaughan, and Dave Brubeck. The chapter concludes with an assessment of big band jazz during the post–World War II era, including the work of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton.

Ellington, Duke (1899–1974)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Duke Ellington ◽  
The Great Migration

Duke Ellington was an American jazz composer, pianist, and big-band leader who authored over 1,000 compositions throughout his career. Having studied piano since the age of seven, Ellington relocated to New York City as part of the Great Migration and became a prominent musical figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He recorded full-length studio albums in quartet and trio settings with high modernists John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. Ellington was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation on the centennial of his birth in 1999, recognising his musical genius, his evocation of the principles of democracy through jazz, and his significant contributions to modern culture and the arts. Giddins and DeVeaux (2009) argue that Ellington’s compositions have been the most performed pieces in jazz written by any one composer.

'I chose the values I regarded as American': sexuality, ethnicity, and FBI informant Angela Calomiris

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 109-135
Author(s):  
Veronica A. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Later Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Red Scare ◽  
Federal Bureau Of Investigation ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Greenwich Village ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Second World

For personal or political reasons undocumented and controversial to this day, Greenwich Village lesbian photographer Angela Calomiris joined forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during the Second World War to infiltrate the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). As Calomiris rose through CPUSA ranks in New York City, espionage efforts resulted in the Attorney General's office declaring the avant-garde Film and Photo League to be a subversive communist organisation in 1947, and the conviction of communist leaders during the Smith Act trial two years later. Interestingly, despite J. Edgar Hoover's indeterminate sexuality and well-documented harassment of gays and lesbians in public life, what mattered to him was not whether Calomiris adhered to heteronormativity, but that her ultimate sense of duty lay with the US government. This article demonstrates how this distinction helped Calomiris find personal satisfaction in defiance of patriarchal conservative expectations and heteronormative cold war gender roles. This article, which utilises FBI files, press coverage, some of Calomiris's papers and her memoir, concludes with a brief discussion of Calomiris's later life in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she continued to craft her identity as a left-liberal feminist, with no mention of the service to the FBI or her role in fomenting the second Red Scare.

The Fragmentation of Jazz Styles

2021 ◽  
pp. 327-400
Author(s):  
Ted Gioia
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
West Coast ◽  
World War ◽  
Third Stream ◽  
Thelonious Monk ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Modal Jazz ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Miles Davis ◽  
Experimental Approaches

In the post–World War II years, jazz started to split off into many different directions, spurring a fragmentation that expanded the creative range of the idiom but caused long-lasting divisions among artists and fans (the so-called jazz wars). The first fault lines emerged between traditional and modern jazz exponents, but during the 1950s and early 1960s, many different styles emerged—including cool jazz, hard bop, soul jazz, West Coast jazz, modal jazz, Third Stream jazz, and various experimental approaches. This chapter traces these stylistic developments, and their leading exponents. It looks at the life and work of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, and Bill Evans, among other major jazz stars of the era, and assesses key albums such as Kind of Blue, Mingus Ah Um, and Giant Steps.

scholarly journals Sonic Grounding and Internalizing Structure: Themes of Continuity in the Music of John Coltrane

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Jason Squinobal
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
Late Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Thelonious Monk ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Miles Davis ◽  
Middle Period ◽  
Recording Artist ◽  
Opening Paragraph

(Opening paragraph): Examining the musical development of John Coltrane, one often gets a deep sense of change. Respected Coltrane scholar Lewis Porter characterizes Coltrane’s career by the “fact that he was constantly developing and changing.” To account for this perception of change, the tendency is to divide Coltrane's music into segmented stylistic periods. This allows us a greater understanding of Coltrane’s developmental building blocks, and the specific elements that he focused on while creating his music. For example, Eric Nisenson divides Coltrane’s work into “Early Coltrane” including his work with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and his first recordings for Atlantic, a “Middle Period” including his work with Thelonious Monk and the early Impulse recordings, and finally a “Late Period” including Coltrane’s avant-garde albums.  In The Dawn of Indian Music in the West Peter Lavezzoli states “Coltrane’s music went through more evolutionary stages during his ten years as a solo recording artist than many musicians realize in a fuller lifetime.” Historical and bibliographical references including the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians also characterized Coltrane’s development as moving from one period to the next.

scholarly journals California’s Composer Laureate

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-51
Author(s):  
Anthony Macías
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
California History ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Mexican Culture ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Musical Philosophy ◽  
The 1960S

This essay uses the 1960s, Gerald Wilson’s most prolific period, as a window into his life and work as a big band jazz trumpeter, soloist, arranger, conductor, and composer. This selective snapshot of Wilson’s career inserts him more fully into jazz—and California—history, while analyzing the influence of Latin music and Mexican culture on his creations. Tracing the black-brown connections in his Alta California art demonstrates an often-overlooked aspect of Wilson’s musical legacy: the fact that he wrote, arranged, recorded, and performed Latin-tinged tunes, especially several brassy homages to Mexican bullfighters, as well as Latin jazz originals. Wilson’s singular soul jazz reveals the drive and dedication of a disciplined artist—both student and teacher—who continually honed his craft and expanded his talents as part of his educational and musical philosophy. Wilson’s California story is that of an African American migrant who moves out west, where he meets a Chicana Angelena and starts a family—in the tradition of Cali-mestizaje—then stays for the higher quality of life, for the freedom to raise his children and live as an artist, further developing and fully expressing his style. However, because he never moved to New York, Wilson remains under-researched and underappreciated by academic jazz experts. Using cultural history and cultural studies research methods, this essay makes the case that Gerald Wilson should be more widely recognized and honored for his genius, greatness, and outstanding achievements in the field of modern jazz, from San Francisco to Monterey, Hollywood, and Hermosa Beach.

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