Thelonious Sphere Monk (Rocky Mount, North Carolina 10th October 1917 - Har… Read Full Bio ↴Thelonious Sphere Monk (Rocky Mount, North Carolina 10th October 1917 - Hartsdale, New York 17th February 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer.
Widely considered as one of the most important musicians in jazz -- he is one of only five jazz musicians to be featured on the cover of Time -- Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy," "'Round Midnight," "Blue Monk," "Straight No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't."
He could play be-bop but commented that be-bop "sounds like dixieland to me." His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations; a style nicknamed "Melodious Thunk" by his wife Nellie.
Early life
Monk was born 10th October 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk, two years after his sister Marian. A brother, Thomas, was born a couple of years later. In 1922, the family moved to 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan. Monk started playing the piano at the age of six. Although he had some formal training and eavesdropped on his sister's piano lessons, he was essentially self-taught. Monk attended Stuyvesant High School, but did not graduate. He briefly toured with an evangelist in his teens, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz.
Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at Minton's Playhouse, the legendary Manhattan club where Monk was the house pianist. Monk's style at the time was described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences include Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists. Monk's unique piano style was largely perfected during his stint as the house pianist at Minton's in the early-to-mid 1940s, when he participated in the famous after-hours "cutting competitions" that featured most of the leading jazz soloists of the day. The Minton's scene was crucial in the formulation of the bebop genre and it brought Monk into close contact and collaboration with other leading exponents of bebop, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker and later, Miles Davis.
Early recordings (1944–1954)
In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was among the first prominent jazz musicians to promote Monk, and Monk later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on the 1957 session with John Coltrane. Monk made his first recordings as leader for Blue Note in 1947 (later anthologised on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1) which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T.S. Monk, who later became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953.
In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. The police found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without the all-important cabaret card he was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several crucial years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs.
After his cycle of intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note during 1947–1952, he was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige he cut several under-recognized, but highly significant albums, including collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Blakey. In 1954, Monk participated in the famed Christmas Eve sessions which produced the albums Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Miles Davis. Davis found Monk's idiosyncratic accompaniment style difficult to improvise over and asked him to lay out (not accompany), which almost brought them to blows. However, in Miles Davis' autobiography Miles, Davis claims that the anger and tension between Monk and himself never took place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding."
In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Europe, performing and recording in Paris. It was here that he first met Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild banking family of England and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She would be a close friend for the rest of Monk's life.
Riverside Records (1954–1961)
At the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records did not sell in significant numbers, and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for mass-market acceptance. Indeed, with Monk's consent, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. His breakthrough came thanks to a compromise between Monk and the label, which convinced him to record two albums of his interpretations of jazz standards.
His debut for Riverside, which featured bass innovator Oscar Pettiford, was built around Monk's distinctive interpretations of selection of well-known pieces by Duke Ellington, including "Caravan" and "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)". The resulting LP, Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington, was designed to bring Monk to a wider audience, and pave the way for a broader acceptance of his unique style. According to recording producer Orrin Keepnews, Monk appeared unfamiliar with the Ellington tunes and spent a long time reading the sheet music and picking the melodies out on the piano keys. Given Monk's long history of playing, it seems unlikely that he didn't know Ellington's music, and it has been surmised that Monk's seeming ignorance of the material was a manifestation of his typically perverse humor, combined with an unstated reluctance to prove his own musical competency by playing other composers' works (even at this late date, there were still critics who carped that Monk "couldn't play").
Finally, on the 1956 LP Brilliant Corners, Monk was able to record his own music. The complex title track, which featured tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from three separate takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first success for Monk; according to Orrin Keepnews, "It was the first that made a real splash."
After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet that included John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. Unfortunately little of this group's music was documented, apparently because of contractual problems, Coltrane signed to Prestige at the time. One studio session was made by Riverside but only later released on Jazzland; an amateur tape from the Five Spot (not the original residency, it seems, but a later 1958 reunion) was uncovered in the 1990s and issued on Blue Note. On November 29 that year the quartet performed at Carnegie Hall and the concert was recorded in high fidelity by the Voice of America broadcasting service. The long-lost tape of that concert was rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress in January 2005. In 1958 Johnny Griffin took Coltrane's place as tenor player in Monk's band.
In 1958, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer the policemen's questions or cooperate with them, they beat him with a blackjack. Though the police were authorized to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as given under duress. State v. De Koenigswarter, 177 A.2d 344 (Del. Super. 1962). Monk was represented by Theophilus Nix, the second African-American member of the Delaware Bar Association.
Columbia Records (1962–1970)
In 1962, Monk signed to Columbia Records, one of the big four American record labels of the day along with RCA Victor, Capitol, and Decca. He had not recorded a studio album since 5 By Monk By 5 in June of 1959, a year that had seen the dual innovations of free jazz by Ornette Coleman, and modal jazz by Miles Davis via his landmark LP on Columbia, Kind of Blue, enter the jazz world. Monk jumped ship to Columbia as he ran out his contract to Riverside via a series of live albums, working with producer Teo Macero on his debut for the label.[3] Featuring a stable line-up that had been with him for two years, tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop, sessions in the first week of November yielded the Columbia debut released in 1963, Monk's Dream.
The resources at Columbia allowed Monk to be promoted more widely than earlier in his career. Monk's Dream would remain the best-selling LP of his lifetime, and on February 28, 1964, Monk appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and was featured in the article, "The Loneliest Monk". He continued to record a number of well-reviewed studio albums, particularly the debut, Criss Cross also from 1963, and Underground from 1968. But by the Columbia period his compositional output was much reduced, and only his final Columbia studio record Underground featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only waltz time piece, "Ugly Beauty."
As had been the case with Riverside, his period with Columbia Records contains many live albums, including Miles and Monk at Newport from 1963, Live at the It Club and Live at the Jazz Workshop, both from 1964 with the latter relased in 1982. After the departure of Ore and Dunlop, the rhythm section of Monk's quartet during the bulk of his Columbia period was rounded out by Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, both of whom joined in 1964 and would, along with Rouse, be his longest-serving band for over four years.
Later life
Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s, and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last studio recordings were completed in November 1971, near the end of a worldwide tour with "The Giants of Jazz", which also included Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Art Blakey, Kai Winding and Al McKibbon.Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctively "hip" sartorial style in suits, hats and sunglasses, and he developed an unusual, highly syncopated and percussive manner of playing piano. He was also noted for the fact that at times he would stop playing, stand up from the keyboard and dance while turning in a clockwise fashion, ring-shout style, while the other musicians in the combo played. Bassist Al McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning', 'Goodnight', 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." A different side of Monk is revealed in Lewis Porter's biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music; Coltrane states: "Monk is exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]: he talks about music all the time, and he wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you."
The documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) attributes Monk's quirky behaviour to mental illness. In the film, Monk's son, T.S. Monk, says that his father sometimes did not recognize him, and he reports that Monk was hospitalized on several occasions due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. Physicians recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk's illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead.[8][9] Other theories abound: Leslie Gourse, author of the book Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk (1997), reports that at least one of Monk's psychiatrists failed to find evidence of manic depression or schizophrenia. Others blamed Monk's behavior on intentional and inadvertent drug use: Monk was unknowingly administered LSD, and may have taken peyote with Timothy Leary. Another physician maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and given drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage.
As his health declined, Monk's last six years were spent as a guest in the New Jersey home of his long-standing patron, Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, who had also nursed Charlie Parker during his final illness. Monk didn't play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. Monk died of a stroke on February 17, 1982 and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Since his death, his music has been rediscovered by a wider audience and he is now counted alongside the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and others as a major figure in the history of jazz. In 1993, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2006, Monk was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
Widely considered as one of the most important musicians in jazz -- he is one of only five jazz musicians to be featured on the cover of Time -- Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy," "'Round Midnight," "Blue Monk," "Straight No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't."
He could play be-bop but commented that be-bop "sounds like dixieland to me." His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations; a style nicknamed "Melodious Thunk" by his wife Nellie.
Early life
Monk was born 10th October 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk, two years after his sister Marian. A brother, Thomas, was born a couple of years later. In 1922, the family moved to 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan. Monk started playing the piano at the age of six. Although he had some formal training and eavesdropped on his sister's piano lessons, he was essentially self-taught. Monk attended Stuyvesant High School, but did not graduate. He briefly toured with an evangelist in his teens, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz.
Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at Minton's Playhouse, the legendary Manhattan club where Monk was the house pianist. Monk's style at the time was described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences include Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists. Monk's unique piano style was largely perfected during his stint as the house pianist at Minton's in the early-to-mid 1940s, when he participated in the famous after-hours "cutting competitions" that featured most of the leading jazz soloists of the day. The Minton's scene was crucial in the formulation of the bebop genre and it brought Monk into close contact and collaboration with other leading exponents of bebop, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker and later, Miles Davis.
Early recordings (1944–1954)
In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was among the first prominent jazz musicians to promote Monk, and Monk later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on the 1957 session with John Coltrane. Monk made his first recordings as leader for Blue Note in 1947 (later anthologised on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1) which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T.S. Monk, who later became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953.
In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. The police found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without the all-important cabaret card he was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several crucial years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs.
After his cycle of intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note during 1947–1952, he was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige he cut several under-recognized, but highly significant albums, including collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Blakey. In 1954, Monk participated in the famed Christmas Eve sessions which produced the albums Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Miles Davis. Davis found Monk's idiosyncratic accompaniment style difficult to improvise over and asked him to lay out (not accompany), which almost brought them to blows. However, in Miles Davis' autobiography Miles, Davis claims that the anger and tension between Monk and himself never took place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding."
In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Europe, performing and recording in Paris. It was here that he first met Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild banking family of England and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She would be a close friend for the rest of Monk's life.
Riverside Records (1954–1961)
At the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records did not sell in significant numbers, and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for mass-market acceptance. Indeed, with Monk's consent, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. His breakthrough came thanks to a compromise between Monk and the label, which convinced him to record two albums of his interpretations of jazz standards.
His debut for Riverside, which featured bass innovator Oscar Pettiford, was built around Monk's distinctive interpretations of selection of well-known pieces by Duke Ellington, including "Caravan" and "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)". The resulting LP, Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington, was designed to bring Monk to a wider audience, and pave the way for a broader acceptance of his unique style. According to recording producer Orrin Keepnews, Monk appeared unfamiliar with the Ellington tunes and spent a long time reading the sheet music and picking the melodies out on the piano keys. Given Monk's long history of playing, it seems unlikely that he didn't know Ellington's music, and it has been surmised that Monk's seeming ignorance of the material was a manifestation of his typically perverse humor, combined with an unstated reluctance to prove his own musical competency by playing other composers' works (even at this late date, there were still critics who carped that Monk "couldn't play").
Finally, on the 1956 LP Brilliant Corners, Monk was able to record his own music. The complex title track, which featured tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from three separate takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first success for Monk; according to Orrin Keepnews, "It was the first that made a real splash."
After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet that included John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. Unfortunately little of this group's music was documented, apparently because of contractual problems, Coltrane signed to Prestige at the time. One studio session was made by Riverside but only later released on Jazzland; an amateur tape from the Five Spot (not the original residency, it seems, but a later 1958 reunion) was uncovered in the 1990s and issued on Blue Note. On November 29 that year the quartet performed at Carnegie Hall and the concert was recorded in high fidelity by the Voice of America broadcasting service. The long-lost tape of that concert was rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress in January 2005. In 1958 Johnny Griffin took Coltrane's place as tenor player in Monk's band.
In 1958, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer the policemen's questions or cooperate with them, they beat him with a blackjack. Though the police were authorized to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as given under duress. State v. De Koenigswarter, 177 A.2d 344 (Del. Super. 1962). Monk was represented by Theophilus Nix, the second African-American member of the Delaware Bar Association.
Columbia Records (1962–1970)
In 1962, Monk signed to Columbia Records, one of the big four American record labels of the day along with RCA Victor, Capitol, and Decca. He had not recorded a studio album since 5 By Monk By 5 in June of 1959, a year that had seen the dual innovations of free jazz by Ornette Coleman, and modal jazz by Miles Davis via his landmark LP on Columbia, Kind of Blue, enter the jazz world. Monk jumped ship to Columbia as he ran out his contract to Riverside via a series of live albums, working with producer Teo Macero on his debut for the label.[3] Featuring a stable line-up that had been with him for two years, tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop, sessions in the first week of November yielded the Columbia debut released in 1963, Monk's Dream.
The resources at Columbia allowed Monk to be promoted more widely than earlier in his career. Monk's Dream would remain the best-selling LP of his lifetime, and on February 28, 1964, Monk appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and was featured in the article, "The Loneliest Monk". He continued to record a number of well-reviewed studio albums, particularly the debut, Criss Cross also from 1963, and Underground from 1968. But by the Columbia period his compositional output was much reduced, and only his final Columbia studio record Underground featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only waltz time piece, "Ugly Beauty."
As had been the case with Riverside, his period with Columbia Records contains many live albums, including Miles and Monk at Newport from 1963, Live at the It Club and Live at the Jazz Workshop, both from 1964 with the latter relased in 1982. After the departure of Ore and Dunlop, the rhythm section of Monk's quartet during the bulk of his Columbia period was rounded out by Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, both of whom joined in 1964 and would, along with Rouse, be his longest-serving band for over four years.
Later life
Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s, and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last studio recordings were completed in November 1971, near the end of a worldwide tour with "The Giants of Jazz", which also included Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Art Blakey, Kai Winding and Al McKibbon.Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctively "hip" sartorial style in suits, hats and sunglasses, and he developed an unusual, highly syncopated and percussive manner of playing piano. He was also noted for the fact that at times he would stop playing, stand up from the keyboard and dance while turning in a clockwise fashion, ring-shout style, while the other musicians in the combo played. Bassist Al McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning', 'Goodnight', 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." A different side of Monk is revealed in Lewis Porter's biography, John Coltrane: His Life and Music; Coltrane states: "Monk is exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]: he talks about music all the time, and he wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you."
The documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) attributes Monk's quirky behaviour to mental illness. In the film, Monk's son, T.S. Monk, says that his father sometimes did not recognize him, and he reports that Monk was hospitalized on several occasions due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. Physicians recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk's illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead.[8][9] Other theories abound: Leslie Gourse, author of the book Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk (1997), reports that at least one of Monk's psychiatrists failed to find evidence of manic depression or schizophrenia. Others blamed Monk's behavior on intentional and inadvertent drug use: Monk was unknowingly administered LSD, and may have taken peyote with Timothy Leary. Another physician maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and given drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage.
As his health declined, Monk's last six years were spent as a guest in the New Jersey home of his long-standing patron, Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, who had also nursed Charlie Parker during his final illness. Monk didn't play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. Monk died of a stroke on February 17, 1982 and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Since his death, his music has been rediscovered by a wider audience and he is now counted alongside the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and others as a major figure in the history of jazz. In 1993, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2006, Monk was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.
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Memories of You
Thelonious Monk Lyrics
We have lyrics for 'Memories of You' by these artists:
A. Kay-B.J. When you listen to music what do you expect to…
Adam Ryan Memories of you that I just don't have Right now, I…
Andy Borg Memories of you nur ein paar kurze Zeilen, Memories of you…
Anita O'Day Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Anita O\'Day Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be B…
Art Tatum Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Association "Memories of you" (J.Yester) Everybody told me the way t…
At Last Glance Here we are again. We're standing face to face But something…
Avi Buffalo Memories of you, They only come to me When I'm with you One…
Basie Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Ben Webster Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Benny Goodman It must have been moonglow, way up in the blue It…
Benny Goodman & Anita O'Day Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Benny Goodman & Charlie Christian Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra Savoy, the home of sweet romance, Savoy, it wins you with…
Benny Goodman & His Trio Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Benny Goodman Quintet Savoy, the home of sweet romance, Savoy, it wins you with…
Benny Goodman Sextet Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Benny Goodman Sextet (featuring Benny Goodman & Charlie Christian) Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, br…
Benny Goodman Sextet and Charlie Christian Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Benny Goodman Sextet;Charlie Christian Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, br…
Benny Goodman Trio Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Benny Goodman; Benny Goodman Sextet; Charlie Christian Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, br…
Bette Midler Why can't I forget like I should? Heaven knows I would…
Big Sid Catlett Quartet Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Bill Monroe [Chorus] Memories of you, sweetheart, still haunt me so Ever…
Bill Monroe & Doc Watson [Chorus] Memories of you, sweetheart, still haunt me so Ev…
Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys [Chorus] Memories of you, sweetheart, still haunt me so Ever…
Bill Monroe; Doc Watson [Chorus] Memories of you, sweetheart, still haunt me so Ev…
Billy Eckstine Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Bird-Flu My memories are strewn wild Like shattered glass on the pave…
Bob & Tom I know I won't find love in memories But my god,…
Bryan Lazar Hello, I know it's been some time But it's kind of funny…
bsd.u 優しい腕に抱かれ 光り生まれる世界 導きの歌が響く この胸へともう一度 帰っておいでと... ちいさな箱庭は あなただ…
Carol Sloane Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Carol Welsman waking skyes at sunrise every sunset to seemes to be bringin…
Charlie Christian Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Charlie Shavers Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Chris And Kellie While Do you even think about the things you say I never…
Clifford Brown Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you Embrace me, you irrepla…
Coleman Hawkins and His All Stars Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Count Basie Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Cozy Cole and His Orchestra Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
DayFox I wish bad things getting back sometimes Wishing that you we…
Dr. John featuring Arturo Sandoval If nothing ever goes away Just becomes part of the sum Maybe…
Duke Ellington Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Ella Fitzgerald Waking skies At Sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be Bringin…
Ethel Waters Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Four Coins The Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be brin…
Fourward Feat. Grimm My mind Is twisted in a knot Since what you've done to…
Frank Sinatra Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Frank Sinatra/Nelson Riddle & His Orchestra Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be B…
Gene Krupa & Anita O'Day Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
George Shearing Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Goodman Group Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Helen Merrill Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Heywood Banks - The Bob and Tom Show I know I won't find love in memories But my god,…
Illinois Jacquet and His All Stars Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Ink Spots Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be B…
J.B. Beverley & The Wayward Drifters When you listen to music what do you expect to…
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James P. Johnson Hold on for me I've got something to say Though it's taken…
Jimmy Johnson And His Orchestra Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Joe Williams Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Judy Garland Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
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Last Child I see the childish part of me When I start losing…
Lee Wiley Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Legion Within These memories of you Never go away They live on inside of…
Lexnour I told you I want no one else but you Left…
Lionel Hampton Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Lionel Hampton & His Sextet Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
London Exchange Took a lonely midnight train With you the only one to…
Lonnie Johnson Wakin' skies, at sunrise, every sunset too, Seem to be bring…
Lootz I can't hideaway the feelings As I'm running from my mind I'…
Louis Armstrong Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Louis Armstrong & His Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra Waking skies at sunrise, every sunset, too Seems to be brin…
Louis Armstrong & Sy Oliver Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Louis Armstrong And His Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Louis Armstrong And His Sebastian New Cotton Orchestra Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Louis Armstrong氀 Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
M. Reizuku I will always love you But only if i could turn…
Mark Murphy Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Maxine Sullivan Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Mel Powell Joe Sullivan & Mary Lou Williams/Williams Today you tell me you are leaving that you are…
NOF.4 I will always love you But only if i could turn…
O'Day Anita Waking skies At Sunrise, Every sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Orlando Memories of you takes me back in time In my…
Parker Rudd Wide awake in an empty room All alone with the thought…
Patrick J. Murphy Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
Pridebowl Wherever were you when time begun And where the hell were…
R. Scott IF YOU'D JUST BE A MEMORY THAT DROPPED IN NOW AND…
Ray Volpe Volpetron I'm stuck in a life long loop with memories of…
Robert Wyatt How I wish I could forget those happy yesteryears They have…
Rosemary Clooney Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
Ryan Adams Memories of you That I just don't have right now I'll make…
Saving One [Verse:] You waste away these years, (You never had an answe…
Shirley Horn Waking skies - at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be -…
Shoji Meguro Kaze no koe hikari no tsubu madoromu kimi ni sosogu Wasuren…
slayyyter There's one play To make me fall in love (fall in…
Stacey Kent / Art Hirahara Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringin…
Switched I got this fucked up feeling that I don't belong…
Teddy Wilson You're my favorite memory. Twilight always set you free. Out…
The Association "Memories of you" (J.Yester) Everybody told me the way t…
The Benny Goodman Sextet Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, br…
The Four Coins Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bringi…
The Ink Spots Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be Bring…
The Inkspots Waking skies At Sunrise, Ev'ry sunset too, Seems to be B…
The King Sisters Waking skies, at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be, brin…
The New Sebastian Cotton Club Orchestra / Kenny Baker Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
Time-Life Swing Era Vol. 5 Wait I can't do this on my own I just lay awake…
Waiting for Autumn I am awake, a lonely dreamer I think of your face Cause…
Will.E.P. Dark memories with tired shoulders and my tears But I…
Zoot Sims Bucky Pizzarelli Buddy Rich Milt Hinton Waking skies at sunrise Every sunset too Seems to be bring…
We have lyrics for these tracks by Thelonious Monk:
'Round About Midnight It begins to tell 'Round midnight, midnight I do pretty well…
'Round Midnight (take 7) It begins to tell 'round midnight 'Round midnight I do prett…
(I Don't Stand) A Ghost of a Chance (With You) (take 7) I need your love so badly, I love you, oh,…
07. Nice Work If You Can Get It The man who only lives for making money Lives a life…
A Ghost Of A Chance I need your love so badly, I love you, oh,…
Abide With Me Abide with me, fast falls the eventide The darkness deepens,…
April in Paris Coba tanya hatimu sekali lagi Sebelum engkau benar-benar per…
Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea I don't want you, but I'd hate to lose you You've…
Body & Soul My heart is sad and lonely For you I sigh, for…
bye-ya Georgia, Georgia The whole day through Just an old sweet son…
Caravan Night and stars above that shine so bright The myst'ry…
Dinah Carolina Gave me Dinah; I'm the proudest one Beneath the…
Dinah (Take 2) Carolina Gave me Dinah; I'm the proudest one Beneath the Dix…
Don't Blame Me Ever since the lucky night I found you I've hung around…
Everything Happens To Me Black cats creep across my path Until I'm almost mad I must…
Ghost of a chance I need your love so badly, I love you, oh,…
Humph It begins to tell 'Round midnight, midnight I do pretty we…
I Someday he'll come along The man I love And he'll be big…
I Cover The Waterfront I cover the waterfront, I'm watching the sea,, Will the one …
I Don't Stand A Ghost of a Chance With You I need your love so badly, I love you, oh,…
I got it bad and that ain Though folks with good intentions Tell me to save my tears …
I Got Rhythm I've got the world on a string, sittin' on a…
I Hadn't Anyone Till You I hadn't anyone till you, I was a lonely one 'til…
I Let a Song Go Out of My Head I let a song go out of my heart It was…
I Love You Someday he'll come along The man I love And he'll be big…
I Surrender Pride, sad, splendid liar, Sworn enemy of love Kept my…
I Wan't to Be Happy I'm a very ordinary man Trying to work out life's happy…
I'm Gettin' Sentimental Over You Never thought I'd fall, But now I hear love call, I'm gettin…
I've Got The World On A String I've got the world on a string, sittin' on a…
In Walked Bud Dizzie, he was screaming Next to O.P. who was beaming Monk w…
Indiana I have always been a wanderer Over land and sea Yet a…
It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing What good is melody, what good is music If it ain't…
Japanese Folk Song Sakura sakura Noyamamo satomo Miwatasu kagiri Kasumika kumok…
Just You Just Me Just you, just me Let's find a cozy spot To cuddle and…
Let's Cool One Revvin' up your engine Listen to her howlin' roar Metal unde…
Lover Man I don't know why but I'm feeling so sad I long…
Monk's Mood (Instumental)…
Mood Indigo You ain't never been blue; no, no, no, You ain't…
More Than You Know Whether you are here or yonder, Whether you are false…
My Melancholy Baby ... Volver a verte la cara ciudad despintada, no tengo opció…
Nice Work The man who only lives for making money Lives a life…
Rhythm-A-Ning What is this? Lotion music I like this lotion music Swag... …
Round About Midnight It begins to tell 'Round midnight, midnight I do pretty well…
Round Midnight 3 It begins to tell 'Round midnight, midnight I do pretty we…
Round' Midnight It begins to tell 'round midnight 'Round midnight I do prett…
Ruby My Dear Shaquille O'Neal F/ Warren G Miscellaneous My Dear Chorus…
Ruby, My Dear Shaquille O'Neal F/ Warren G Miscellaneous My Dear Chorus 4X…
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes They ask me how I knew My true love was true I…
Solitude In my solitude You haunt me With dreadful ease Of days gone …
Sophisticated Lady Sophisticated lady tryin' to change my ways Just because you…
Sweet %26 Lovely Sweet and lovely sweeter than the roses in May Sweet and…
Sweet Lorraine Everything is set, skies are blue, Can't believe it yet, bu…
The Man I Love Someday he'll come along The man I love And he'll be big…
The Way You Look Tonight Some day, when I'm awfully low, When the world is cold, I…
Thelonious My heart Is sad and lonely For you I sigh…
These Foolish Things Oh! Will you never let me be? Oh! Will you never…
We See NSYNC New! Tap highlighted lyrics to add Meanings, Special …
Well You Needn't The man who only lives for making money Lives a life…
Who Knows Now what we came here to do It means more to…
Work The man who only lives for making money Lives a life…
You Are Too Beautiful You are too beautiful, my dear, to be true And I…
You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart You took the words right out of my heart, Abd it…
’Round Midnight It begins to tell 'Round midnight, midnight I do pretty well…
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
Coulton-Davis Jazz
Monk did not make mistakes. He played clusters and dissonant notes because they were elements of his approach to jazz piano. Listen to his playing on the Carnegie Hall concert with Coltrane. Tell me he doesn't have all the chops he needs after hearing that! On this record he does some amazing things with attack and sustain, pulling off part of a cluster without the pedal to make "bent" notes!
jimihd1
+CB Davis Every note is the right note, for me... more thant right, that's why it sounds strange.
James Hogg
Perfect. The older these recordings get (especially solo) the bigger Monk's reputation becomes.
Habsburg Snennjk
The last stanza definitely puts a smile on your face . Monk humor at its best!
Jens Bølling-Ladegaard
This is Classic Monk. His left hand is nearly boyish, i.e. fresh and everlasting during the first half of this wonderful interpretation of an old evergreen. It’s kind of stride-piano-playing. And esp. the last third is amazing, because Monk is improvising more and more powerfull. I think it,s his Best performance of a ballad!
Joseph Bundy
A beautiful song. Monks unique style perfectly fits the melancholy of the song. But no one can play it like Eubie.
Jim Thompson
When he is lyrical it is breathtakingly beautiful.
Robert Ross
Haven't listened to this performance in decades. Absolutely classic Monk!
LagBoheme
The opening is the most melodic i've ever heard Monk.
Roman Ggg
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