Il blog Bop and Beyond pubblica una bella intervista al professore Robin D.G. Kelley autore di Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, una straordinaria biografia del grande pianista.
Il libro si basa su documenti esclusivi della famiglia Monk e da registrazioni private, così come da un decennio di ricerche prodigiose, nei quali lo storico Kelley porta alla luce un Thelonious Monk sorprendentemente diverso, spiritoso, intelligente, generoso, impegnato politicamente, brutalmente onesto, ed un padre e marito devoto.
Despite previous biographies and a documentary film, Monk still appeared to many to be an extremely obscure and mysterious figure. You had unprecedented access to Thelonious’s family and friends, as well as many home and personal recordings. Was it difficult to separate Monk’s public persona from his private one? How much of the public myth surrounding him was self-reinforced?
Access to the Monk family materials and, more importantly, to Monk’s family and closest friends was essential for discovering who Thelonious was as a person, his demons and charms, and what he was up against. After years of digging, three things became very clear: first, that the media (going back to about 1947) essentially created and kept alive the public image of Monk we’ve inherited; second, that Monk himself had a bit of an investment to maintain the image of him as eccentric or “crazy” as a strategy to protect his own identity and privacy; third, that the range of behaviors Monk exhibited cannot to attributed to any one factor, and what is often called “eccentric” is often misunderstood. His actions, as I make clear in the book, have to be understood in context; each moment is situational.
Per maggiori informazioni sul libro potete visitate il sito ad esso dedicato.
Il libro si basa su documenti esclusivi della famiglia Monk e da registrazioni private, così come da un decennio di ricerche prodigiose, nei quali lo storico Kelley porta alla luce un Thelonious Monk sorprendentemente diverso, spiritoso, intelligente, generoso, impegnato politicamente, brutalmente onesto, ed un padre e marito devoto.
Despite previous biographies and a documentary film, Monk still appeared to many to be an extremely obscure and mysterious figure. You had unprecedented access to Thelonious’s family and friends, as well as many home and personal recordings. Was it difficult to separate Monk’s public persona from his private one? How much of the public myth surrounding him was self-reinforced?
Access to the Monk family materials and, more importantly, to Monk’s family and closest friends was essential for discovering who Thelonious was as a person, his demons and charms, and what he was up against. After years of digging, three things became very clear: first, that the media (going back to about 1947) essentially created and kept alive the public image of Monk we’ve inherited; second, that Monk himself had a bit of an investment to maintain the image of him as eccentric or “crazy” as a strategy to protect his own identity and privacy; third, that the range of behaviors Monk exhibited cannot to attributed to any one factor, and what is often called “eccentric” is often misunderstood. His actions, as I make clear in the book, have to be understood in context; each moment is situational.
Per maggiori informazioni sul libro potete visitate il sito ad esso dedicato.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento