washerman's dog: Thelonious Monk

Monday, March 12, 2012

Islam and Jazz Tangled Roots: Ahmed Abdul Malik

The relationship between jazz music and Islam is one of the more seemingly improbable yet fascinating connections in contemporary global culture. Both forms of human expression have their American roots in the pain of the enslavement of African people. And though about a third of Africans transported to North America were Muslims, the open practice of the religion of Mohammad (PBUH) quickly died out. But as scholars have pointed out, some intriguing echoes of Islam are embedded deep in American culture.

Two deserve mention.

Azaan the Muslim call to prayer, probably the most evocative and beautiful piece of acappella music conceived by man, is the foundational musical structure of the blues. And the blues, of course, are the foundation of jazz.

In the coastal areas of the state of Georgia the churches are all built facing Mecca.

Within the community of African American jazz musicians in the 1940s and 1950s the message of Islam found many receptive converts. One of the more fascinating figures was the bass and oud player Ahmed Abdul Malik. When asked, he consistently told people that he was Sudanese and had been born a Muslim. In most biographies or profiles about Malik this background is almost universally accepted. However, one of the most authoritative scholars of African American history and the biographer of Thelonious Monk, with whom Malik played, Dr. Robin Kelley, has provided very compelling evidence to the contrary. Malik’s parents were in fact, emigres from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and until 1948 the musician was known (and legally registered) as Jonathan Timm.

Malik (bass) playing with Monk (piano)

Whatever the circumstances of his conversion and motivation for spinning the Sudanese story, all agree that Malik took his new faith very seriously. In a subculture rife with alcohol and narcotic abuse Ahmed Abdul Malik neither smoked nor drank. He was also one of the earliest musicians to attempt a serious infusion of Arabic and Middle Eastern musical scales and instruments into his jazz playing. He mastered the oud which is played on several records, including tonight’s feature, Eastern Moods. He toured South America with the instrument and performed at music festivals in Morocco in the early 70s. In the latter part of his life he taught jazz improvisation at New York University.

This record which comes via the wonderful blog Sun Ship is from 1963. Every track, including the standard, Summertime, has an oriental flavor and feel. The last three in particular are lovely compositions stripped of almost any Western/jazz elements.

Track Listing:

01. Summertime

02. Ancient Scene

03. Maghrebi

04. Sa-Ra-Ga'-Ya-Hindi

05. Shoof Habebe

Listen here.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Swing and Swing Some More: Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk

I just finished reading a biography of Thelonious Monk by Robin D.G. Kelly and cried on the last page. It’s a story full of pathos of how a young boy with a fabulous name (Thelonious Sphere Monk) was born with an intention to play the piano. And play it only his way. And how that young man who insisted on playing music that no one else heard and most everyone else laughed at or scoffed at opened a whole new window on jazz which others turned around and called be bop.

Ignored constantly but always robbed of his ideas and tunes and ideas by others he laboured away playing in tiny clubs in Harlem. Those who in time would become giants and legends and icons sat by his piano and listened to what this cat with the funny hats and natty suits was trying to figure out. Monk in those days was like a sculptor desperately chipping away the extraneous and the heavy in search of the essential and the perfectly balanced.

Yet he never made it. Miles, Dizzy, Charlie, Art, Charles. They all made it and they all paid homage to Monk who continued to literally scrape out a living supporting a wife and two kids.

Critics hated him. But he always had an audience. But promoters didn’t trust him to show up on time so they avoided him. He nearly starved.

Then suddenly after composing a whole slew of masterpieces (‘Round Midnight, Straight No Chaser, Epistrophy to name just three) the critics finally got it. And the record companies began chasing him. For 10 years he was the toast of the jazz world.

But it was soon over. Again he was dropped by companies and promoters. The giants of jazz still worshipped his music and marvelled at his compositions. Sidemen said they learned more working with Monk then in all their other gigs put together.

He was a family man who through thick and thin loved his wife and kids like nothing else. He struggled with depression and poverty and rumours and misinformation about himself. But he just kept looking for that piano to play. When someone said he was great “even though he plays a lot of wrong notes,” Monk retorted, “There ain’t no wrong notes on a piano.”

By the time he died he had created a new genre of jazz, had been hailed as one of America’s greatest composers, influenced countless of superstars and unknown jazz musicians, was called the High Priest by adoring fans around the world. But he died lying fully dressed on a bed of a friend in New Jersey, having not played publicly for 6 years. His wife from whom he’d separated by never stopped loving, held him in her arms as he passed away.

My first introduction to jazz was Underground Monk’s album with the wild cover. The cover won a Grammy award and spun all sorts of stories that he had been a fighter with the French underground in WWII. That’s what my brother told me when he showed me the record in 1969 as a symbol of ‘ultimate cool’.

For years it was the only jazz record I knew about. And the songs on the record are indeed old friends. But now after reading about this amazing man’s sad, funny, full and creative life these songs seem to have cracked out of the earth fresh. I can’t stop listening.

Monk used to tell his sidemen who complained they didn’t know how to play his music. “Just swing and swing some more.” Every song here, even the slow (Monk’s favourite tempo) Ugly Beauty, oscillates like nobody’s business.