![](3D"http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/images/nellie&thelonious.jpg"=20) A Drink at Least.
As soon as he was released, the police cancelled his "cabaret = card," a=20 document required of all entertainers who appear in New York = nightclubs.=20 Losing the card cost Monk his slender livelihood, but he had a = reputation=20 as an oddball and the police were adamant. For six years Monk = could not=20 play in New York; though he made a few records and went out on the = road=20 now and then, he was all but silenced. "everybody was saying = Thelonious=20 was weird or locked up." Nellie recalls, "But they just talked = that way=20 because they'd never see him. He hated to be asked why he wasn't = working,=20 and he didn't want to see anybody unless he could buy them a drink = at=20 least. Besides, it hurts less to be passed over for jobs if you = aren't=20 around to hear the other's names called. It was a bad time. He = even had to=20 pay to get into Birdland." Monk was the man who was not with it, and jazz was passing him = by.=20 Miles Davis had come on with his "impressionist" jazz style - a = rubato=20 blowing in spurts and swoons, free of any vibrato, cooler than = ice. The=20 Modern Jazz Quartet was playing a kind of introverted 17th century = jazz=20 behind inscrutable faces, and Dave Brubeck (TIME cover November 8, = 1954)=20 introduced polished sound that came with the complete approval of = Darius=20 Milhaud. Suddenly jazz - one of the loveliest and loneliest of = sounds, the=20 creation of sad and sensitive men - was awash with rondos and = fugues. The=20 hipsters began dressing like graduate students.=20 =A9 TIME magazine - 1964 |
![](3D"http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/images/time2.gif")
Things were terrible until 1951, when they got worse. =
Monk was=20
arrested along with Bud Powell when a packet of heroin was found =
in their=20
possession. Monk had always been "clean" but he refused to let =
Powell take=20
the rap alone. "Every day I would plead with him." Nellie says,=20
'"Thelonious, get yourself out of this trouble. You didn't do =
anything"=20
But he'd just say "Nellie, I have to walk the streets when I get =
out. I=20
can't talk,"' Monk held his silence and was given 60 days in jail.
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