If You Could Hear Me Think, This Is What I'd Write, #1

I have explained this previously and I don’t want to belabor the point too much, but I love the music of Thelonious Monk. As I wrote in November 2016:

I am a fan of the brilliant jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. There is something about his music that gets deep into my soul, as great music will do. Oddly though, Monk’s work burrows deep into my brain as well. It’s hard to explain, but I can practically feel the neurons firing up when I listen to Monk.

I often listen to Monk albums on Mondays, or as I like to call them, MonkDays. Again, I don’t quite understand the logic or science behind this, if there is any, but Monk’s languid ballads and twisty-turny upbeat numbers are the perfect soundtrack for me to reset my brain for the week ahead.

In short, listening to Monk gives me a certain creative jolt. But again, I don’t want to belabor the point.

So instead, I’ll just say this: last night, I listened to the Monk compilation that was released in conjunction with the Ken Burns Jazz documentary series in 2000. The comp is a decent career-spanning introduction to Monk’s work. While listening to the collection, I made the little piece of art shown above.

Next Sunday night, I hope that I will listen to another Monk album and make another cool little piece of art while doing so. But I make no promises.

Incidentally, when I was in second grade, circa 1972, I won 2nd place in the Aston Women’s Club Elementary School Art Contest with a piece similar to that shown above. I called it Stained Glass Window. I was happy to have snagged the award but now I wonder if the parents of kids who created more representational art were scandalized that their children’s work was cast aside for the 2nd place award in favor of my blatant attempts to revive cubism for the 1970s. But I guess the point now is, as Rick Springfield once noted in another context, moot.