THE FOLLOWING MONK INSTITUTE
MONK IN NORTH CAROLINA: THE HISTORY, THE PLACE, THE MUSIC
POSTPONED UNTIL JUNE 2008
For more information, including a full schedule of events, visit www.jazzloftproject.org, or call (919) 660-3663.
In a unique, three-day historical immersion, the Following Monk Institute commemorates Monk’s 90th birthday by investigating the North Carolina roots of the man and his music.
Sam Stephenson, director of the Jazz Loft Project at the Center for Documentary Studies, will lead participants on carefully guided tours of Rocky Mount— Monk’s birthplace— and of Newton Grove, the tobacco plantation region where the pianist’s ancestors were slaves and where some of his relatives still live today. Accompanying the tour will be Monk’s son, T.S. Monk, the celebrated drummer and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.
Several members of the extended Monk family will present their extensive
genealogical research, tracing Thelonious’ roots back to the 18th
century, and specialists on Monk’s musical heritage will set the
artistic scene, explaining the influences linked to Monk’s Rocky
Mount and Newton Grove family background.
Other speakers will include Georgetown historian Maurice Jackson (on the origin of Monk’s music in spirituals and rural church music)
and Paul Jeffrey, Monk’s last tenor saxophonist (1970-1976), who
became a close family friend.
Award-winning poet Betty Adcock will read a poem commissioned for this event, reflecting on the influence of Monk's mother, Barbara Batts Monk. In addition, Stephenson
will present sounds and images from Monk’s Town Hall rehearsals,
sessions that took place in photographer W. Eugene Smith’s New York
loft and have never before been heard. In total, this three-day event is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn about a legend in his native territory.
Following Monk Institute on the web:
Presented by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.