Mysterious Gift of Thelonious Monk
Jazz enthusiasts undoubtedly know one of jazz greats - pianist Thelonious Monk. However, few are aware of how a mysterious accident helped Monk to develop his playing style. At that time, he was a regular pianist at Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York. During a rehearsal, Monk noticed the reflection of his hands in the mirror polished black surface of the piano just above the keys. Undoubtedly, he had seen the reflection of his hands many times before, but he never thought much about it. He never attributed any significance to it. However, now he was in a dreamlike state – perhaps the stage lighting was different, or maybe the weed was greener than usual – so he unexpectedly realized that he was playing with four hands. Absolutely in synchrony. Or maybe not? Monk noticed that, indeed, the reflections of his hands were slightly delayed. He stopped playing, strained his ears, and started playing again. He heard the delay, sometimes like an echo that didn't fully separate from the original sound and lingered like a tail, and sometimes like a delayed press of the same key. This realization threw Monk off rhythm, and he found it difficult to play. It seemed to him that the reflections of his hands hindered the free movement of his actual hands. Monk closed his eyes and played without looking at his hands and the keyboard. However, he could not get rid of the thought about another pair of his hands. As the result, the notes were not clean – the tone drove into a note and left again. Like an inexperienced singer who poorly controls his voice and must drive in - Monk thought and opened his eyes. To his amazement, the reflections of his hands were gone. The keyboard reflected on the piano surface, but the hands were not. Monk felt like he lost a part of himself.
My hand reflections must be playing in some other jazz club - a strange thought crossed his mind. However, glancing at the reflection again, he saw his hand reflections – what a relief… But now it seemed to him that they were playing some other tune, different from Monk's playing. The piano sound of the reflections was extremely quiet and distant, and if Monk didn't notice reflections of his hands, he wouldn't have heard their playing. "Look how autonomous these reflections are," Monk complained aloud feeling offended. “They need to be taught a lesson.” And Monk began to play a familiar tune, but hitting the keys hard with his fingers, introducing unexpected pauses, dramatically lifting his hands high above the keyboard and away from reflecting surface, and mixing in dissonances. This did not impress his hand reflections. They accepted the challenge and followed Monk's hand movements. Especially during sudden attacks on the keyboard, Monk heard how his hand reflections lagged – it seemed as if Monk was not hitting a key with just one finger, but with several at once. The familiar melody changed unrecognizably, and Monk liked it. There was more dynamism and energy, but also unexpected contemplative pauses. It was the power of imperfection. "I need to not so much teach my reflections as tame and befriend them," Monk decided. “And I must stop paying attention to them so that they wouldn't throw me off rhythm.” He solved this by always wearing dark polarized sunglasses.
Whether Monk tamed his hand reflections or adapted to their autonomy himself, his playing style became unorthodox from then on, and he never took off his dark glasses. Some jazz fans disliked Monk's new style. For example, jazz critic P. Larkin called his playing "an elephant on the keyboard." However, they were in the minority. Among the regulars at Minton's jazz club, Monk's unorthodox playing gained great success, and his fellow musicians admired his new style and tried to copy it. In those days, jazz musicians had no qualms about borrowing someone’s else ideas. However, no one knew the secret – that Monk played with four hands – so no one could perfectly copy his imperfection.
Monk is one of the five jazz musicians featured on the cover of Time.