Monk: I don’t hear very much attention paid by artists to the tuning of their drums. How does one go about achieving his or her sound? Now you take a drummer that gets in the pocket, gets under everybody and keeps everything thumping, right? You ask people, ‘How was the drummer?’ They say, ‘The drummer was great!’ Often people go to a dance and the band has a drummer that can really play a lot of stuff, right? If you ask people after the dance, they will say, the drummer was loud. They know how you have to be a supporter - you’re the drummer, you’re not the trumpet player. They get the baddest musicians on the planet that they can find and they play stuff that is really tight and really together. Monk: The thing I learned from Max Roach, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Cozy Cole, Sid Catlett, Chick Webb, Ed Shaughnessy, Chico Hamilton and all the great drummer band leaders is when you listen to their records, they don’t fill their records up with a lot of drums.
The impact of John Coltrane or David Sanborn - it’s there! “Twist and Shout” was there too, you know? And all of that used to come at you so I think those sensibilities that you get from the variety have an effect, particularly on drummers because of the rhythmic influences. You know, I was telling my daughter the other day, I remember when “Love and Marriage” was number one on the Hit Parade. That’s because I’m a baby boomer, and we had a pop culture experience of diversity that no longer exists. My sound is really a hybrid between that wide open sound of Art Blakey and Max Roach and a real, real tight sound that you might get out of the bass drum. Very serious and then you know, our ears opened up and we explored other things and then we came back to jazz with a lot of those other things.įor instance, when I listen to the sound of my drums, as much as I love Art and Max, it’s not an Art and Max sound on my kit. I’d like to think that the paths I have taken or the path that Branford Marsalis has taken is similar to that of the Herbie Hancocks and the Wayne Shorters, in that we started out very, very straight ahead. Because you know, it’s really the same influences. When I listen to some of the artists in jazz, it seems to me that those of us that have had that kind of diversity in our background tend to make, I think, better records at the end of the day. I’m not one of those guys that runs from musical projects they were doing in the ‘80’s - everything’s so serious now. If the world loves it, well you’re lucky. Monk: I absolutely love everything I have done. But, you began by playing funk and disco… Many people have said that they hear Blakey and Tony Williams in your hard pop playing style. I had the opportunity to discuss his rich musical heritage, favorite drummers, dealing with personal challenges and what turned things around.
is not shy – his enthusiasm for the drumming art and popular culture was delivered with passion, authority and rapid-fire recollections (not unlike one of his drum solos).
can play! He swings hard with grace and respectfully tips his hat to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, among others. Just ask world-renowned jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman.īut, beyond all this, T.S. has spread the gospel of jazz across the globe, earning honors like New York Jazz Awards’ “Recording of the Year,” Downbeat’s “Reader’s Poll Award” for his critically acclaimed legacy to his father, “Monk on Monk.” He also heads up Thelonious Records and scouts promising musical talent as Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. From receiving his first drumset from Max Roach to listening to his father, Miles Davis, John Coltrane or Art Blakey upstairs in his living room, there was no escaping it – he was presented with the ‘gift’ at an early age.Īnd since then, T.S. had the good fortune of soaking in all the musical vibes surrounding him at home. Monk, son of virtuoso jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, has carved out his own niche as a respectable and identifiable voice in bop drumming circles. And that’s a mighty good thing for jazz lovers and drummers alike. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
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