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10/10/2003 Entry: "The Lonliest Monk"

Who's the Lonliest? The Lonliest monk?
That would be Thelonious Monk. Thelonious Sphere Monk.
Composer, Pianist,
The High Priest of Bop.
Exiled to his own Kingdom, New York.
A giant man, The Dancing Bearking,
He never came to you,
You were summoned.
He comped too Badass for Miles,
Had to send Trane away,
When Nelly was sick,
The Duchess helped out.
He stood up for Bop Wizard Powell
So the Man snaked his Union Card.
A king without a sword,
A kingdom without a king.

Monk, born today in 1917, is without question one of the most unique as well as significant American composers of the 20th century. His compositions were earthy yet complex, capricious and sometimes dark, and are like staggering postcards with pictures of ballet-dancing hippos sent from far across the ocean of a vast, lateral intelligence.

I mean, the man was bad. He could blow like no one else. His crawling and crabbling lines. The paw prints in the dirt, the pondering hoverance. A drunken giant climbing down that biggass beanstalk. Single-cell organisms. Yo Mama so fat, she jump in the air and get stuck.
And legend has it that once he secretly demonstrated to another musician that he could burn it down just like Bud and then said "Don't tell no one."

Studying comp in school, Monk tole me to write music that has not yet been written; that's hard to do with regularity. Turn on that radio and you know what I mean.

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