Blog #4

For four year old Thelonious Monk, moving to New York was an exciting experience. What Monk at the time did not know is that his families “rich cultural, intellectual, and political legacy” coupled with the new environment he was moving too would “shape his music and his worldviews in both profound and subtle ways.” (Kelley, 2)

Monks family moved to the neighborhood of San Juan Hill around 1922, a community plagued by racial violence. San Juan Hill had a large youth population which had to endure much of this daily violence, becoming one of the “busiest crime areas in New York City.” (Kelley, 18) “I did all that fighting with ofays [whites] when I was a kid. We had to fight to make it so we could walk the streets” recounts Monk. (Kelley, 18) Even among all this violence and prior to the Harlem Renaissance, “San Juan Hill boasted the largest concentration of black musicians in the city.” (Kelley, 19)

Being an epicenter for black musicians, this created a community within the San Juan Hill neighborhood as nearly “every household had an instrument” creating a common thread between all the residents. (Kelley, 20) Monk’s first musical instrument was a piano given to his family, a gift he didn’t want to let go to waste. Monk began his musical career by taking formal piano lessons but it was clear early on his love of music resided in jazz, learning from the jazz musicians in his neighborhood. It was this tight knit community that taught Monk to play the piano, ranging from Alberta Simmons to the church on West 61^st Street. However, “the most important influence on Monk’s early development as a musician and as a young man” was the Columbus Hill Community Center. (Kelley, 28) The community center fostered a safe environment for the black youth community as “incidents of fighting or serious misbehavior were few and far between.” (Kelley, 29) By creating a safe environment, Monk was able to create his first band with two other kids from the Community Center with the “trio’s most important gigs [being] the Friday night dances at the Community Center.” (Kelley, 37) All of these early on experiences helped mold Monk into the musician that he became.

This is what is meant by the phrase “jazz is New York.” The San Juan Hill community was heavily diversified culturally and racially. However, jazz and music in general was able to escape these preset barriers and unite the community on a common passion. Additionally, the jazz that was created was a product of the environment it came out of and also in return the musicians had a lasting impact on the environment, creating a mutually supportive relationship.

The history of the San Juan Hill community can be connected to more recent events to the neighborhood of Leimert Park. Both communities were plagued by racial violence but music and other art forms became a common ground for people to come together. However, the process to the development of a sense of community was almost reversed in Leimert Park. In Leimert Park, the jazz wasn’t a product of the environment but rather an existing element that brought people together, such as at 5^th Street Dicks Coffee House.

In this case though, it is wrong to say that really one is the product of another or vice versa. From its beginning, jazz musicians have always been a product of their environment. Jazz musicians are molded by their environment, and their music in turn has a larger effect on the community, ultimately creating a constant growth and rebirth for each.

Commented On: Jacob Weverka