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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Monk Is Tough

June 1, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

He has to be, to withstand the abuse he’s taking. From the right, a pianist identified as Hans Groiner–who may actually be someone named Hans Groiner–castrates Monk, with results that make John Tesh sound like Arnold Schoenberg. Groiner, or the Groiner simulacrum, writes on the Myspace website, “I am from the Austrian village of Braunau, (also the birthplace of Hitler, but please don’t hold that against me!”
Then he tells of hearing Monk for the first time.

Although his music fascinated me, I had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, Mr. Monk had obvious talents, but on the other hand, his piano playing was very messy, and his songs had many funny notes and rhythms. Over the many years that I have been studying his music, I have grown to the conclusion that his songs would be much better, and much more popular, if many of the dissonances, or “wrong notes,” were removed.

So, he removes them. Go here to listen to samples of the results, which Groiner says are “from my CD, which I am planning to release worldwide, very, very soon!” You have been warned.
From the left, a heavy metal rock group calling itself Brilliant Coroners (get it?) collects the energy that Groiner extracted from Monk’s music, expands it to nuclear proportions and unleashes it without mercy. You may sample it here. Samples were enough for me, but I don’t know your taste or your tolerance level.
Somewhere in the middle is Thelonious Moog, which is beguiling at first. After a few tracks, however, its comic synthesizer simulations of explosions, sirens, animal sounds, belches and other body noises become–oh, I don’t know–whoopee-cushion humor. These cats can meter, though. I became exhausted imagining the hours of computer programming involved in contructing this electronic tower of Babel.
As Bach rose above Wendy Carlos, Monk rises above these tributes, if that’s what they are. It may help restore your faith in his genius, not to mention your sanity and your sense of humor, to listen to the real thing. There are dozens of terrific Monk CDs, but why not go back to this one, recorded years before he made the cover of TIME (“I’m famous, ain’t that a bitch?”). It is one of his best. Added attractions: Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane and Gigi Gryce.

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Comments

  1. Mel Narunsky says

    June 1, 2006 at 4:01 am

    Not Charlie Kunz Plays Monk? This poor misguided idiot will have to be very tough to withstand the abuse he’s going to get from us: Thelonious Monk lovers unite!
    I didn’t have the stomach to investigate the left or the middle.
    An absolute desecration.
    – Mel

  2. Caleb says

    June 1, 2006 at 5:50 am

    In the category of Monk renditions that are more appreciative and interesting, I recently enjoyed hearing “Trinkle, Tinkle” off Gianluca Petrella’s Indigo4 album. It features some tasteful computer sampling, but it’s not sampling for the sake of sampling, and it’s done in a playful spirit that I think Monk might have appreciated.

  3. dja says

    June 1, 2006 at 8:53 am

    Word on the street is that “Hans Groiner” is a Famous Jazz Pianist. Would it be irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.

  4. Janet Shapiro says

    June 1, 2006 at 2:57 pm

    Given the photo, the copy and of course the music itself, surely Hans Groiner is a total spoof. Rather in the tradition of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards (now I’m showing my age).

  5. Russ Neff says

    June 1, 2006 at 6:21 pm

    I think the Groiner piece is indeed a joke, practical or otherwise. Remember Steve Allen’s ‘discovery’ of a boogie-woogie pianist back in the sixties?

  6. dja says

    June 3, 2006 at 4:00 pm

    Yes, “Hans Groiner” is (obviously) a joke — the interesting question is, who is the jokester?
    I have a pretty good idea, but the guessing game is much more fun if there’s actual guessing involved…

  7. Don Emanuel says

    June 5, 2006 at 9:55 am

    It really did sound like Liberace (is he really dead). Just what I need Monk “smoothed out”. There was one Monk “tribute” that did come off IMHO and that was “That’s the way I feel mow” by Hal Wilner in 1984 featuring such musicians as Carla Bley, Johnny Griffin, Dr. John, John Zorn, Steve Lacy and Todd Rungren. The difference being that all of the music seemed to have a real love of Monk’s music. Nothing smoothed out here, in fact some of it was extremely eccentric. I’m sure Monk would have loved it.
    Mr Groiner is hardly to be laughing all the way to the bank as who the hell would buy this garbage.

  8. Patti Wicks says

    March 7, 2007 at 3:21 pm

    I suspect that “Mr. Groiner” is playing a joke
    on everyone–indeed, I pray it’s a joke, although these days nothing would surprise me. As I watched the first bit of the video, his hair looked to me as though it might actually be a wig and I began to have doubts……
    Patti

  9. AHirsch says

    September 5, 2007 at 8:44 am

    It’s Larry Goldings.
    (It is, although some hard-core easy listening fans refuse to believe that Groiner doesn’t exist. — DR)

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

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A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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