Final Entry: My learning experience

Upon signing up for this course last fall I expected a number of things to come out of the class. First, I automatically assumed we would learn of some of the big names of jazz like Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Little did I know, these were just two of the many disciples of jazz and did not come close to covering all genres of the music. While Miles and Armstrong are pinnacles of musical achievement and innovation, their predecessors and influences were perhaps more inventing and helped foster their sounds. King Oliver mentored Armstrong, while Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie “Bird” Parker, some of my newfound favorite jazz artists, took Miles under their shoulders when he moved to New York in September of 1944. Secondly, I revised my views of the origins of jazz music. I had formerly believed that jazz was created sometime in the 1930s as modern jazz or bebop. I had no idea as to the origin of jazz in New Orleans as a combination of ragtime and blues, or the historical influences that enslavement of Africans and the Latin code of slavery had on jazz’s emergence at the turn of the 20^th century. The clash and fusion of African and European, composition and improvisation, spontaneity and deliberation… will follow us at virtually every turn in the evolution of jazz (Gioia 27).

Of the many concepts discussed in class, the idea of a dialogic between artist and community, as proclaimed by M.M. Bakhtin, has most changed my outlook on how art and culture emerges. M.M. Bakhtin argues that there must be a dialogic involved in the creation of an art form jazz. This dialogic imagination refers to the idea that a musician does not create a new piece without an intended listener in mind; they take the circumstances of that time and make it relevant in their art form (Lecture 2/7). Coming into the course this statement seemed logical to me; the culture reflects the community. But not until this class did I begin to understand the complex dialogic between the community and the artists. Dialogue may not be achieved in one direction. There must be dialogue back and forth. Not only can a community influence artists, but artists may create and influence communities through their work. Thelonius Monk, for example, was a product of his upbringing in San Juan Hill. The violent nature, diversity and segregation of the area led to a distinct sound in Monk’s piano playing. Through his playing Monk was later able to foster a unique bohemian community (Lecture 2/26).

Thelonius Monk: A Product of and Creater of a Community

The community at San Juan Hill heavily influenced Thelonius Monk’s personality and helped shape his music. Growing up in San Juan Hill, Monk was subject to violence, diversity, segregation, and racism. With a diversity of people came a diversity of cultures (Kelley 18). As is seen throughout its history, when a diversity of cultures comes together a new form of jazz is created. Thelonius had an Austrian born Jewish piano teacher, Simon Wolf, through whom he was taught works by Chopin, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff (Kelley 26).

While Thelonius did experience diversity of cultures through his teachers and community, the diversity also lead to major racism and segregation near San Juan Hill. “The daily violence young people endured in San Juan Hill haunted Thelonious for many years to come (Kelley 18) Thelonious responds to the violence and segregation in New York  by saying, “There’s no reason why I should go through that Black Power shit now. I guess everybody in New York had to do that, right? Because every block is a different town. It was mean all over New York, all the boroughs. Then, besides fighting the ofays, you had to fight each other. You go to the next block and you’re in another country” (Kelley 19). Not only did whites fight blacks, but there was much black on black violence as well. The violence and segregation Thelonius experienced is found in his attack and improvisational style of play.

Though Thelonius attempted to stay away from the “Black Power shit”, his music was a way to transcend traditional racial politics. Dr. Stewart argues that Monk “used his art to create a new community, a bohemian community bound together by a tolerance for modernity, for dissonance in music and for the avant garde in art and life” (Lecture 2/28). His success in transcending race and class lines is epitomized by his relationship with Nica, a white woman. Nica, respect for Monk and his music led to the two spending the last decade of Monk’s life together in a mutual friendship.

Monk’s transcendence of racial politics through music made him an easy target of racism, as is seen in his arrest in Delaware in 1958. Upon being falsely accused for violence and a narcotic possession, Monk was so mad that when ordered out of the car by policemen, he refused to go (Kelley 254). Thelonius was finally convicted of assault and battery and lost his cabaret card. This incident made Thelonius a direct victim of racial injustice, and had a profound effect on his mental state for years to come.

The community that Thelonius Monk and his music fostered was a bohemian one which all peoples were on equal levels. Monk’s music embodies a vision of new community and artistic souls—rebels against middle class conformity (Lecture 2/28).