Having chosen Felonious Monk as one of my web monikers, with props to Mr. Thelonious, it was a little surreal as I heard the FIRST artist on Pandora dot com that I was 1) unfamiliar with and 2) found interesting enough to actually be willing to go out and plunk down money on his CD's.
That would be Joe Henry. Do yourself a favor; go to Pandora, type in 'Angels' and choose the Joe Henry version...here's a quick review from some musical cognoscenti of Joe's album "Tiny Voices":
"Henry has become master of his own brainy genre, one that weds the fiercest, most private poetry to edgy sound pastiches incorporating everything from '70s soul and hip-hop to free jazz and avant electronics."
It's Singer Songwriter-type stuff, in the angry, cerebral style of Bruce Cockburn (pronounced Coburn).
I go to his very interesting website at
www.joehenrylovesyoumadly.com, and I find this little shrine to Thelonious Monk:
"THELONIOUS MONK "HACKENSACK"
The music of Thelonious Monk is, for me, purely devotional and endlessly life-affirming. And I am devoted to it, as Monk was my doorway into jazz. In fact, I still remember where I was standing, at 15, in a friend's makeshift photo darkroom when he dropped the needle on "Hackensack", the first track on Criss Cross (still my all-time favorite). I was electrified by its playful melody, its willful dissonance, and its swinging take on the blues. Not to mention the lightning communication between Monk and his altoist Charlie Rouse: the greatest marriage of sense and sensibility since Duke Ellington found Johnny Hodges. In fact, no one save Ellington composed more melodies than Monk that sound now so utterly inevitable. I am reminded of the quote from Picasso where he said, "when I was 22 I could paint like Rembrandt, but it took my whole life to learn to paint like a child." To me, "Hackensack" is the sound of a man completely in control of his powers, but down on his knees like a kid, painting with his fingers.
Joe Henry"
...I'm feeling waves of time and reality like ripples in the space-time continuum pond as it all bounces out to the universe and right back into my little dusty corner of the time-warped South.
Synchronicity?
Or, have I just stayed up too late, gotten bleary-eyed, and need to shut up and go to bed?
I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide.
