Most people, if they know any songs by the great Jazz musician Thelonious Monk, know or have heard the title of the slower song “‘Round Midnight”. While I admit that that song has its own greatness, I don’t think it exhibits the kind of quiet soul of some of his other slower works.
Thelonious Monk was an eccentric jazz musician of the bebop area. He often played with John Coltrane, although I read once that he and Miles Davis did not get along too well. Monk’s eccentricities are legendary. Often he wore a different strange hat for an extendid period—I think after a tour in Japan he wore a “coolie hat” on stage for a while. He rarely spoke, and when he did he often mumbled. During a concert he would regularly cease playing and dance in a tight circle on stage.
A documentary featuring largely contemporary footage about Monk, Straight, No Chaser (from a title of one of his pieces) was produced by Clint Eastwood argued that he suffered from some form of mental illness. Interview’s in that film with Monk’s son show that he was often distant and was hospitalized a number of times. What amazes me as well is that he just one day refused to play anymore—after spending all of his time on the thing, he just retreated into himself too far to touch it anymore. Like his time with it was finished.
“Crepuscule with Nellie” is one of those works that makes you feel a ripple deep in your soul. For me, I think my soul sits at the bottom of my stomach, because it flops and turns with every repeated playing of this track. If you get the 15 disc Riverside Recordings you get like half a dozen various versions of this song.
Crepuscule means twilight, and Nellie was his wife who was with him his entire life. Being so unique and having very special needs, Nellie was on every tour and travelled with him extensively, particularly has his condition got harder for him. For me I’d like to think that this song was him giving back to her. I often feel the power of this song and upset because I have the same feelings for my partner in life, but I won’t be able to write her something this good to express it. This version I found is not the best one in my opinion: there are four different takes of the song on Disc 4 of Riverside, and they are masterpieces.
This one does have a short interview with him at the beginning, the actual song starts at 1:57. I love this song because you can here his heavy handed handed style, where he seems to wait until the very last second to place each note, and then throws his hand down on the keys. He sometimes seems to be unsure just where each note is supposed to go, but you know he always picks the exact right one. When he has a full band for this song, it begins slow with just him and a wire brush on a drum, but slowly the rest of the pieces come in at the end to burn slowly.
