In a short video response to Mia and Sadia’s Black History Month call for videos about Black heroes, Tom Guarriello introduces a brief excerpt of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” performed by Thelonious Monk and explains why Monk is one of his personal heroes. He describes Monk’s unmistakable musical voice, his collaborations with bebop legends such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker, and his reputation as a creative genius with a tortured soul. Guarriello notes Monk’s later‑life withdrawal from performing, yet emphasizes his lasting influence, citing the posthumous 1993 Lifetime Achievement Grammy and the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He recommends the documentary DVD “Straight No Chaser: The Story of Thelonious Monk’s Life” as an inspiring yet sad portrait of the artist. Finally, he asserts that playing the excerpt in the background qualifies as fair use. The video serves both as a personal tribute and a call for viewers to explore Monk’s music during Black History Month.
Chapters
Well, hi, it's Tom Guarriello. I just watched Mia and Sadia's video on Black History Month asking for video responses about Black heroes. And before I say anything, I just want to play a little something and ask you all if you recognize this song and who might be playing it. Any of us over a certain age will recognize the song as "Body and Soul," one of the real classics of the jazz standard repertory. And the musician playing that song is one of my heroes, and that's Thelonious Monk. Why is Monk one of my heroes? Well, if you listen to Monk, if you ever listen to Monk, once you've heard Monk, you'll never mistake Monk for anybody else. It's always Monk. And Thelonious Monk was a genius. He was a creative genius of immense proportions. And in the '40s and '50s, he played with all the jazz greats, all the bebop greats— Coltrane, Davis, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker a little bit. But Monk was distinctive. And Monk was a bit of a tortured soul. I highly recommend, if you have any interest at all in jazz, or if you have any interest at all in Thelonious Monk, that you pick up this DVD, Straight No Chaser: Story of Thelonious Monk's Life, because the story is at once both tremendously inspiring and also very, very sad. Munch, um, later in his life, uh, stopped performing and really withdrew probably for the last 10 to 15 years of his life. But that didn't stop his work from being enormously influential and tremendously widely played and distributed. In 1993, Monk got a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, and then just last year in 2006, Monk was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music. And his enormous creative talent, if you listen to the way Munk rethought every single note of every single song he ever played and never ever took anything for granted as the way it had to be. Um, his— that approach has always stood out for me as a shining example of what the creative spirit really is, and I can't think of anybody better to, um, remember during Black History Month than one of my all-time heroes, Thelonious Monk. So I hope y'all will listen to some Monk and maybe even watch the film, and hopefully it'll have the same kind of an effect or a similar effect on you that Monk's had on me, which is always to encourage me to rethink everything. The way we do things. Thanks. And by the way, I don't believe I'm breaking any copyright by playing this song in the background rather than putting it on here as a separate track of this, of this video, because I do believe that that fits into the category of fair use. So thanks a lot, guys. Take care.
