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News from the College | |
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Contact us: 252 985 5141 |
May 5, 2000 T.S. Monk at Dunn Center May 12, 8 p.m. Rocky Mount, NC—T.S. Monk and his Sextet will be appearing at the Dunn Center for the Performing Arts, Friday, May 12, 2000, at 8 p.m. He comes to Rocky Mount to honor his father’s, Thelonious Monk’s birthplace. This event is rescheduled from the original January 28 date, which was cancelled due to snow. Tickets for the January 28 date will be accepted. Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for senior citizens/students 12-17, and $10 for 12 and under. Contact the Belk Box Office at (252) 985-5197 to reserve tickets for the event, or purchase them at Hastings Entertainment Superstore, 992-0232. On Friday, at 2 p.m., T.S. Monk will also attend the naming of the Thelonious Monk Park, on the corner of Washington and Dunn streets in Rocky Mount.
Additional Information: T.S. most recently received the New York Jazz Awards’ First Annual "Recording of the Year" honor for his CD, "Monk on Monk, 80th Anniversary Birthday Tribute to Thelonious Monk." He is creating his own musical legacy, outside of that of his famous father. After over two decades of recording his own music, however, it’s clearly evident that the drummer/bandleader baby Monk has grown up into a full-fledged artist of his own right. Married, with two children, T.S. Monk dropped out of the music scene after his father’s death in 1982, which was followed by the death of girlfriend Yvonne Fletcher in 1983 and his sister Barbara the following year. He devoted his time to the Thelonious Monk Institute until 1991 when the T.S. Monk Sextet emerged with three critically acclaimed straight-ahead projects on Blue Note Records. But just as things were coming together, T.S. was again struck by tragedy. He was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, a rare neurological condition with no known cause or treatment. Affecting his face, he could not blink, smile, or move his lips to speak. He waited five months to regain the use of his muscles. "I didn’t know if or when I would be able to appear in public again. It was so hard I really didn’t want to discuss it much afterwards, I just wanted to be back in the business of making music." He came back with 1997’s heralded "Monk On Monk," his first CD for the N2K Encoded (now N-Coded) Music label. The album was the 1998 Jazz Awards Recording of the Year, "Critic’s Pick," and also topped the Downbeat Readers’ Poll. "That CD marked a watershed event in my career," Monk relates. "It came out great, but for me it closed the door on the issue of me dealing with my jazz history and my father." Monk’s latest CD, "Crosstalk," is what he is really about. Tunes like "The Black Hole" and "Smile of the Snake" represent a unique amalgam of styles, as traditional jazz instrumentation propel R&B-flavored rhythms which, in turn, inspire melodies reminiscent of fusion’s best moments. "Squeaky Clean" and "You Touched My Heart" pay homage to T.S. Monk’s straight ahead roots, while "A Touching Affair" utilizes insistent Afro-Cuban percussion to create a sharp contrast to his bluesy cigarette vocals of "Somebody Buy Me A Drink" and "Just a Little Lovin’," the playful Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil classic. The title track sums it all up as it incorporates styles and genres rarely heard together on one disc, much less one song. |
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Last modified by webmaster@ncwc.edu
on 12/16/05 |
