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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 |
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