Thelonious Monk - Eine Jazzlegende

The film I will be reviewing is the documentary Thelonious Monk Straight No Chaser. This film is a documentary of the late Thelonious Monk born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, who moved to Manhattan, New York, at the age of four. Thelonious was an American jazz pianist and composer, widely considered one of jazz's biggest figures and the founder of bebop.

The interest in this move for me began the very first time I heard jazz. This was watching the movie Block Party with Dave Chappell. This movie shows a lot of black musicians and a little of what they do back stage. In some of the clips they show Dave Chappell playing with some of the musicians. In one clip in particular Dave is playing a piece from Thelonious Monk. Surprisingly it didn't occur to me that he was playing jazz from years ago because it went with contemporary music of the time. So I looked it up. What I found was a great heritage of music that is timeless which I would have never listened to, and that's what interested me in this documentary

Straight No Chaser starts with Monk's start as a musician and his hand in the start of bebop. This movie shows raw footage as Monk plays a popular song "Rhythm-a-ning." The movie is especially interesting because it is in black and white and give's it that classic fill that monk gives off when he is playing. The movie explains how in the beginning not many knew Monk, even though he helped create the bebop style. They go through how he gained his popularity and showed great behind the scene pictures and clips of Monk. This movie is the perfect film for anyone interested in jazz or just the innovation of music. It is honest and holds nothing back from the life of this great musician. It glorifies his ups just as well as his downs. It also allows us to see in the life of a musician who was mostly private with his affairs and that makes it all the more interesting. The end of this movie is great for anyone who loves not only jazz but music in the creative sense. It shows how music affects the lives of people and how great and eclectic this musician really was.

Clint Eastwood really did well with this film. It portrays the great and legendary playing and composing of Thelonious Monk and also his hard time during his life. One of the best films on Jazz to date. I suggest music lovers of all kind to watch this movie.

Thelonious Monk is the most important musician ever produced by this country. He is the greatest composer and the most influential musician of the jazz era. This movie is so incredible because I had not been lucky enough to have seen him before he died, and when I saw the movie I was moved to tears. No one in the movie actually admits he was schizophrenic, but it seems pretty obvious and to me, makes him even more of a genius--that he could write and perform despite his disability. It shows the deep devotion of his wife Nellie, and others who helped him, and finally, how he sank into his illness before he died. Thank you so much, Charlotte Zwerin, for making this paean to Monk. When people are still listening to him hundreds of years from now, they can see him in your wonderful movie.

If you want to know what it is like to live be a jazz musician, it is important that you see this movie. As a jazz musician myself I have yet to see a film which captures the true essence of not just being Thelonious, but being a jazz musician in general. Thelonious Monk might just be the greatest jazz composer who ever lived, and this film is a tribute to his entire career. If you want to learn about a great musician, the life of being a jazz musician or even just how to make a good documentary, you must see this film.

The facts in the life of the virtuoso jazz pianist are somewhat neglected in favor of the music itself, with most of the film devoted to various live performances and rare, behind-the-stage rehearsal footage. The latter scenes give this otherwise straightforward portrait its most revealing moments, showing how complex and exacting the work of jazz composition and arrangement can be. Biographical details are filled in by friends and family but never probed in depth: was Monk, for example, actually suffering some form of mental illness, or was his peculiar behavior merely the pose of an eccentric artist? If for no one else the film is a must for jazz fans and musicians (it was produced by Clint Eastwood).