Artspeak: Men in Gray...Monknificent
Thursday, 12 March 2009 00:00
Irma McClaurin
Last Friday night, March 6, 2009, my mom and I had the pleasure of listening to the "Men in Gray," also known as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Pulitizer prize winning music director Wynton Marsalis. Their tribute to Thelonious Monk, performed at Minneapolis' Orchestra Hall, highlighted the range and genius of Monk's contribution to jazz. Born in 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Thelonius Sphere Monk lived in New York City with his family from the age of four onward. He attended Stuyvesant High School, but never graduated; and while his sister took piano lessons, Monk's affinity for music and the piano were essentially self-taught, and began as early as age nine, signaling him as a musical child prodigy.
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