We Just Change The Beat
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Wednesday, 28 December 2005 09:32 |
#1
thelonious
for alfred lion & frank wolff
on the fifteenth of october, 1947, five days following his 30th birthday,
thelonious sphere monk was blessed with his first recording session as a leader on blue note records
the genius of modern music, prophet of bebop, progenitor of modern jazz,
born in rocky mount, north carolina, & bred in the jungles, west 63rd street, new york city,
where the piano players were kings & james p. johnson, willie the lion smith, & numerous of others
populated the neighborhood both night & day, before blacks took over harlem & moved even further north, this
was the place where the music was in new york city, just a few square blocks off to the side,
dense with negroes from the east coast & the south, not mississippi
but atlanta, charlestown, savannah, the piney woods & tobacco country & virginia,
60 years after slavery was abolished, 300 years after jamestown
unloaded slaves shipped from west africa, strangers in a strange land,
thelonious monk was brought to manhattan as an infant & began his piano lessons at age 6,
1923, surrounded by genius & the beautifully evolved culture of africans in america
detroit april1984
3.1.669 |