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Jazz Perspectives
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Monks Music: Thelonious Monk and

Jazz History in the Making
Michael C. Heller

Harvard University ,
Published online: 25 Sep 2009.

To cite this article: Michael C. Heller (2009) Monks Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the
Making, Jazz Perspectives, 3:2, 177-181, DOI: 10.1080/17494060903152412
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Jazz Perspectives
Vol. 3, No. 2, August 2009, pp. 177181

Book Review
Monks Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making. By Gabriel Solis.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-520-25201-1 (paperback).
Pp. 239. $23.95.
Downloaded by [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] at 21:36 22 June 2014

MichaelHeller
Jazz
1749-4060
Original
Taylor
3202009
mheller@fas.harvard.edu
000002009
Perspectives
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1749-4079
(online)
10.1080/17494060903152412
RJAZ_A_415414.sgm
and
Francis

The great man approach to jazz history is dead. It was eulogized and buried in the
wake of the New Jazz Studies movement that emerged in the mid-1990s. In this trend,
scholars from various disciplines began posing questions geared less toward musical
biography and formalist musical analysis and more toward explorations of the varied
social, cultural, and political meanings of jazz for musicians, listeners, and the world at
large. Earlier historical texts, while usually respected for their research contributions,
were now framed as conceptually limited, hagiographic, teleological, or overly
concerned with historical minutia. These older historical paradigms were often characterized as being rife with oppressive marginalizations of various individuals, styles,
races, or genders (as is readily evident in the very idea of a great man approach). By
contrast, New Jazz Studies emphasized postmodern-inflected critical approaches
toward analyzing musical meaning(s). As a newly-accepted academic discipline that
utilized the most up-to-date theoretical tools and critical perspectives drawn from
musicology, ethnomusicology, critical race studies, literary theory, gender studies,
media studies, and a host of other fields, New Jazz Studies thoroughly transformed jazz
scholarship. Or did it?
The great man approach to jazz history is alive and well. Its resonance throughout
the jazz world can be seen at multiple levels of musical, academic, and organizational
practice. Institutions like Jazz at Lincoln Center have become powerful forces in the arts
world through their entrenched emphasis on, and reverence for, the traditions seminal
figures. Each year, university library shelves are filled with dozens of new biographies
that chronicle the lives of jazz luminaries large and small. Journalists and critics likewise
evaluate new artists by comparing them to canonic figures, while students and professional musicians trade stories, legends, and lies about the exploits of these jazz giants on
and off the bandstand. Thanks to the rise of academic jazz scholarship, American universities regularly offer undergraduate jazz history survey courses, but these courses almost
invariably emphasize how legendary individuals revolutionized the music at specific
moments in time, in a succession from one great artist (usually men) to another. This
continued presence of the great man narratives of jazz history paired with this traditions now-respected home within academia, has had a considerable effect on the profile
of jazz throughout the world. The music has been transformed from a symbol of youth,
wildness, and danger, into an icon of high art that mirrors the canons of Western Art
Musiccanons which have themselves gone through intense deconstruction and
reconstruction since the rise of the New Musicology movement in the mid-1980s.
ISSN 17494060 print/17494079 online 2009 Michael C. Heller
DOI: 10.1080/17494060903152412

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178

Book Review

While both of the above accounts involve some hyperbole, neither is intended
simply as a straw man argument. On the contrary, as scholars such as Scott DeVeaux
and Krin Gabbard have noted since the early 1990s, historical jazz studies is a deeply
paradoxical practice in which the right hand builds canons even as the left hand
attempts to deconstruct them. But I do not wish to imply either that these two critical
interests represent a sort of pitched battle for the future of jazz scholarship. Indeed, the
last fifteen years have seen numerous instances of healthy cooperation between proponents of older and newer approaches to jazz studies. Many researchers have recognized
that attempts to deconstruct overly-restrictive canons need not be made at the cost of
ignoring the views and experiences of a wide range of musicians, listeners, and historical actors and witnesses. Both individual scholars and newer organizations like
Columbia Universitys Jazz Studies Research Group have worked together to include
both old and new critical viewpoints in their activities and research, thereby developing
new ways of discussing not only what the history of jazz is, but how such histories
emerge and accumulate significance over time.
Gabriel Soliss recent book, Monks Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the
Making, both resides in and confronts this critical gap, and in the process Solis makes
a significant contribution to jazz scholarship. Far from being a traditional Thelonious
Monk biography, this work explores the pianists changing legacy as it evolved both
during and after his lifetime. Solis asks not about what Monk is or was, but what he
has been for several generations of musicians, listeners, and writers (7). While he
grants that these two concerns are not entirely separate, Solis is equally adamant that
they are not identical. By tracing how different individuals and communities have
interpreted Monks legacy in ways that nourish their own artistic, social, and personal
pursuits, the book examines how (jazz) history emerges in ways that are fragmented,
contested, and complex. In Soliss words, the book is an attempt to come to terms with
jazzs historicism, and to see why the past has become so important in this age of the
putative death of history (205). By doing so, the book provides a possible model for
answering an important question for jazz historians: how do we study a great man
after the great man theory is dead?
Monks Music is divided into three sections, the first of which focuses on Monks
performances of his own music. Following a thumbnail biography, Solis builds his
rich study through his personal interviews with a range of musicians. Through these
discussions, he seeks to explore how contemporary performers talk about and relate to
Monks playing. He notices, for example, that rather than focusing on small-scale
technical details of the music (melodic patterns, chord voicings, etc.), these musicians
tend toward broader conceptual topics of discussion (5960). Five recurring themes
are discussed in detail: Monks use of time; riff-based melodic unity in his compositions; the combination of linear development and cyclical repetition; the idea of
Monks music as its own world; and the use of musical humor. Solis closely interrogates each of these concepts to reveal deeper theoretical concerns that arise from
them. A few examples illustrate this approach. Solis considers, for instance, whether
Monks combination of linear and cyclical structures can be conceived as a musical
analogue to Houston Bakers concept of Afro-modernism, a theory that stresses the

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Jazz Perspectives 179

pronounced synthesis of vernacular and modernist discourses in mid-century,

African-American art forms (4849). He ponders how discussions of musical humor
straddle a precarious line between perpetuating harmful stereotypes of black male
identity, on one hand, and lionizing a narrow Eurocentric image of the romantic artist
on the other (he refers to this as a cultural politics of playfulness [54]). Solis further
questions how the idea of Monks music constituting its own world complicates
simple notions of musical communication on the bandstand, instead emphasizing
how musicians must constantly engage with an absent composer, even as they interact
with bandmates. In most cases, Solis raises more questions than he answers, but his
analyses offer many fascinating directions for thinking about the varied viewpoints
and insights of musicians.
Part Two of Monks Music explores how individual musicians attempt to engage
with Monks legacy in their own performances. A particular challenge arising here is
how a musician can incorporate elements of Monks musical language without sacrificing his or her own personal performance style. In exploring this topic, the book
delves into issues surrounding the double discourse of unity and division that
pervades jazz performance (67). By extending Paul Berliners notion of jazzs eternal
cycle of pre-composition and improvisation, Solis explores how musicians struggle to
craft performances that are faithful to the original compositions, while also being unassailably new (68). As he notes, the multi-vocal nature of jazz creates a unique environment wherein musicians must contend with the legacies of composers and well-known
recordings of a given piece, even while attempting to develop their own personal voice.
Solis argues that such concerns are heightened when considering a figure as pervasive
and idiosyncratic as Monk.
Solis expands upon this point by considering three case studies of pianists Danilo
Perez, Fred Hersch, and Jessica Williams. Especially interesting are the different ways
that each musician discusses his or her own relationship with Monk. Perez emphasizes his connection with the composer, using this affinity as a way to [establish]
himself as a part of the jazz tradition (86). By contrast, Hersch downplays his
indebtedness, for fear of being labeled a musical imitator. While Solis notes that these
self-presentations may possess heightened significance due to the racial identities of
the two musicians (Perez is Afro-Panamanian and Hersch is white), he avoids
supplying simple sociological explanations for their responses. In a shorter, but
highly effective, discussion of Williams, Solis notes the impact of gender within
discourses of innovation, imitation, and creativity. Like Hersch, Williams rejects the
description of her playing as Monkish, arguing that this description fails to interrogate what she does with readily identifiable formal units that index Monks style
(103). While each case study is fascinating on its own, the larger message comes from
their juxtaposition. The work shows how individuals both construct and contend
with Monks legacy within a complicated matrix of musical, social, racial, and gender
considerations.
The most provocative chapters come in Part Three, which explores Monks significance for various subcommunities of the jazz world. This section begins with a consideration of Monks importance in mainstream and/or repertory contexts, before Solis

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180

Book Review

turns to discuss more avant-garde and countermainstream approaches. While

certain groups view Monk as a model of musical excellence to be canonized in a fashion
reminiscent of classical composers, others frame him as an icon of nonconformity who
resists canon-building impulses and legitimizes more experimental approaches to
performance. Once again, a common theme for all of these groups is their desire to
remain true to Monks legacy while also creating music that is new and fresh. The devil,
of course, is in the details; differences among these constituencies emerge in how they
choose to define what it means to be true, what it means to be new, and what it means
to be a musical clone.
While the larger argument of this section is strong, one could perhaps take issue with
how Solis chooses to subdivide jazz musicians into discrete musical subcommunities.
The categories Solis uses are the mainstream/canonical movement, the avant garde,
high modernism, Africentrism, and the pop avant garde. Admittedly, Solis notes that
these categories are overlapping and provisional, yet the book sometimes reifies the
distinctions between these communities in ways that both overstate and understate
their significance. It overstates insofar as these divisions undermine how musicians
may travel between these constituencies at various moments; it understates by minimizing the degrees of differentiation and dissention within each community, many of
which are made up by even smaller sub-constituencies. Roswell Rudd and Steve Lacy,
for example, are framed as purveyors of a high-modernist approach (despite their long
experience playing in avant-garde contexts1), while Gary Bartz and Kenny Barron are
mentioned representing the avant garde (despite both having impressive mainstream
credentials). Solis seems aware of this difficulty and carefully qualifies his statements,
but his choice to frame his analyses in terms of distinct communities sometimes works
against his efforts to present a broad spectrum of subject positions. A longer conclusion
discussing the relationships between these communities could have been helpful to reemphasize the fluidity of such boundaries.
Soliss study uses an impressive combination of methodologies to bolster its arguments. These include ethnographic fieldwork, critical approaches drawn from literary
and cultural theory, and a healthy dose of musical transcription and analysis. But it is
the works grounding in an engagement with living musicians that ensures that the text
never feels like a mere academic exercise. The authors theoretical prowess is used
primarily as a tool to interpret and contextualize the views of these musicians, not to
overshadow or discount them. As a result, Monks Music remains constantly engaged
with very direct concerns impacting the jazz community, even as it works to frame a
broader argument about the constructedness of historical narratives. Soliss goal is not
to take sides among the various views and interpretations of Monk that he encounters,
1 Solis justifies this distinction between high modernism and the avant garde through a lengthy discussion drawing
from Andreas Huyssens After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1986). Though the argument raises several interesting points, I found that it still tended to overly
obscure the connections of Rudd and Lacy with musicians of the jazz avant garde (who are discussed in an entirely
separate chapter). In addition, I was surprised that Solis did not probe any potential racial resonances underlying
this distinction, particularly in the way that he had done in the aforementioned discussion of Danilo Perez and
Fred Hersch.

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Jazz Perspectives 181

but rather to present them without resolving their contradictory elements. He is not
looking to solve particular problems surrounding Monk interpretation, but rather to
present the sum total of Monks legacy as a richly interrelated web of musical and social
meanings.
While the books broad-based methodological framework is generally quite effective, there are moments where the reader is left to wonder why Solis chooses one
approach over another in addressing a given topic. In particular, the tone of the writing
seems to change in sections where Solis interviews musicians directly versus those
where his analysis is based on recordings, published interviews, or liner notes. This is
notable in chapter six, which presents a thought-provoking examination of Monk
presentations that draw on classical music models. Once again, three case studies are
used to explore the issue: T. S. Monks engagement with his fathers music; Marcus
Robertss album Alone with Three Giants; and Wynton Marsaliss album Marsalis Plays
Monk. While the discussion of T. S. Monk is based largely on interviews, the analyses
of Marsalis and Roberts are based solely on recordings, along with liner notes and
contemporaneous reviews. In the latter two cases, Soliss tone seems somewhat
more critical of the musicians approaches, referring to Robertss album as a blander
recording for better or worse (150) and Marsaliss as remarkable despite coming
off as somewhat mannered (152). Though subtle, this shift is palpable when
contrasted with Soliss evenhanded tone throughout the remainder of the book. While
there may be reasons that Solis was unable to speak with Roberts or Marsalis, the
absence of their direct input is a slight shortcoming of this otherwise persuasive section.
It fails to allow the musicians an opportunity to voice their own rationales and motivations for pursuing the projects in the way they didthe type of input that is so powerful in other parts of Monks Music.
But these difficulties are minor in comparison to the books success in reframing our
most basic notions of musical legacy. Solis views history neither as a search for objective
truths, nor as a deconstruction of abstract texts, but rather as an ongoing process
conducted and contested by musicians and listeners in the real world. In this sense, the
study has implications for more than Thelonious Monk alone. By examining the ways
in which legacies are established, Solis elucidates how control over history acts as a
powerful tool through which musicians work to formulate identities and to legitimize
their own artistic work. This point may come as little surprise to those who have
witnessed the explosion of historical approaches in jazz over the past twenty years, but
Soliss book provides a particularly thoughtful approach for addressing it.
The great man approach to jazz history still exists, and scholars must develop techniques for grappling with it. Monks Music provides one place to start.
Michael C. Heller
Harvard University
Editors Note: As Gabriel Solis is this journals book reviews editor, Michael C. Hellers
contribution to this issue was both commissioned and edited by the Editor-in-Chief, John
Howland.