| Length | 08:05 |
| Licensor | Center for Documentary Studies |
| Producer(s) | John Biewen |
| Formats | Documentary |
| Topics | African American, Historical, Music |
| Produced | October, 2007 |
| Added to PRX | November 19, 2007 |
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A musical portrait that explores the Jazz great's overlooked Southern roots.
http://cds.aas.duke.edu/audio/index.html
Editor: Tom Cole
Photo credit: Green Street, later renamed Red Row, the Rocky Mount, North Carolina road on which Thelonious Monk's family lived, from his birth in 1917 until 1922. Photo by Jonathan Williams, 1970, Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Engaging, Intriguing, Thoughtful
The jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk is usually remembered as a hip New Yorker. He was a pioneer of Bebop who lived most of his life on Manhattan's West Side. But Monk was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and raised by his mother, a native of that tobacco and railroad town. Monk's son and the writer Alan Gurganus, among others, reflect on Monk's often-neglected Southern roots -- and, by extension, those of many other jazz greats.
