Sunday, May 14, 2017

Sweet Driving Songs Ep.3: Thelonious Monk's "Nutty"

Monk in deep concentration.
My fellow bloggies, you better start getting used to seeing posts of jazz on Sweet Driving Songs cause I'll rape (in a good way) your eardrums worse than John Wayne Gacy did to teenage boys... before killing them. Okay, okay it may seem as an extreme comparison to you, but with so many marvelous jazz tunes to listen to and discover, let's say that you will have enough to create a playlist worthy of a trip around the world; by car, of course. Thelonious Monk, in case you don't know, is considered one of the best jazz pianists to have even set foot upon our beautiful planet Earth. At the beginning of his career, Monk wasn't well perceived, especially when he played in France, because of his purist-upsetting style. He was different and ballsy at the same time, for going against the general public's fear of the unknown and sticking to his guns, as we say. The way Monk has you hooked on a major chord progression and then, out of nowhere, falls to a minor is typical of his way of composing. His style is chaotic but controlled at the same time. Think of it as the rallying of music. In rallying, you have to settle for spontaneous decisions, resulting in you making up ground as if you've eaten the worst Indian meal of your life and, at the same time, tickling the balls of physics by pushing your ride to the limit. Thelonious does the same thing with his piano, producing a melody that could've easily sounded off but ends up exceptional. If that isn't mastery, then I'll ride bicycles for the rest of my life and shout at people who do burnouts. Check out Thelonious Monk's Trio awesomeness here!  





No comments:

Post a Comment