Original subtitles

Selenius Monk wrote this piece at the beginning of the 40s, and yet he had to

wait until 1958 for his name to become famous among jazz lovers.

Before that, indeed, before obtaining the cover of Time, Selenius Monk was

of this Bauhaus of jazz that revolutionized the world.

We went into this, we were in a terrible plane connection.

in that small airport.

There were only about nine seats in this bar in this airport.

And when we first got there, Melonius and Johnny Griffin took two seats.

And we were sitting there for about two hours. Slowly but surely, the whole bar

was taken over by the band.

You were carrying on with the bartender.

Finally, it was very sort of hot.

By the end of the thing, I'm...

Well,

they followed us. They were taking pictures of the whole thing. They went

Canada. They went to Newport.

They were down in Atlanta.

And, well, just forever, you know, for about three months.

They followed us.

They had this documentary. They sold it to... A German teller. Oh, yeah.

You know... Ernest.

He did the... He bought it.

He did the... Did he look in America too?

No, no, never seen him in America. No, I've never seen him.

No, we've seen him in America.

He did come see in Germany, didn't he? No, they just followed us all the way

around. They followed us all around.

Well, 10 others just came, and everybody just kept walking right through. Nobody

there got inspired by the K -Man.

Yeah.

Give me that.

coming in right here.

There was one guy who was checking the airline.

He was waiting at the other end. Everybody else standing around.

What'd you say, what'd you say that happened?

They can't go on site, can they?

Thank you very

much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

They don't have them.

You get them now?

Yeah,

but they don't have them at the... You know, if you go into a bar at home, they

don't have them.

And you?

I had...

Well, it's perfect.

It will be better.

That would be a good thing.

The Navy.

The Navy.

The Navy. The Navy.

The Navy. The Navy.

The Navy.

The Navy.

No, I don't think so.

Thank you.

I'm going to try to ask you to start over again if you don't want to. No,

I'm going to try to ask you to start over again if you don't want to.

I'm going to eat.

The Capuscule for Nelly.

I ask you about the title of this theorem.

So you don't like to say anything about Nelly?

It's all right. You know, we're not kids.

Do it your way.

Okay.

So we start with the cover school ice cream with the title.

I'm going to say, what is the title of this tune?

And you say, cover school ice cream.

Papier ne gêne pas, là?

Vous ne voyez pas?

Telling you, what's the title of this last tune, please?

Crepescule with Nelly.

Crepescule with Nelly.

Nelly is your wife.

Right. And she told me once, you were born in the same district.

Nelly is your wife.

And she told me one day that you were born in the same city.

And that you grew up together. Can you say something about that?

All I can say is she's my wife.

And mother of my kids.

Telling you, can you say something about Nelly?

She's my wife and the mother of my kids.

That's all I can say.

I'm waiting for you. Why don't I call Simone?

Yeah. I'll run up right away and get 5 o 'clock one.

5 o 'clock flight to New York.

Yeah. Maybe you go on with us when we're gone. Yeah.

So I'll wait for you. So you call us.

Thank you.

Au début des années 40, la France...

Qu 'est -ce que je reprends?

Les auteurs de la pochette que nous voyons maintenant n 'ont certainement

pensé à tout cela en nous présentant Monck en résistant français.

On y trouve Monck armé d 'une mitraillette, jouant du piano dans une

Derrière lui, un soldat allemand est fait prisonnier, Ficelet XVI.

That's extraordinary.

And Thelonious, in this big room, seems to be swinging like he's doing for us

tonight.

Yeah, Thelonious.

I've got your piano in your kitchen.

It's a finesse.

You don't like something about that?

Oh, that's nothing.

Oh, it's beautiful.

No?

I don't mind.

He then played on a small piano that he had placed in his living room.

Later, when the success came, he changed the piano. He bought a big concert

piano. And since only the kitchen was able to hold this instrument, he didn't

hesitate for a second.

He placed it in the kitchen.

So, as you can see in this photo, when you enter Chateauneuf, you can see the

piano surrounded by a sink, a gas heater, ironing iron, things like that.

Chateauneuf.

Why did you put your piano in your kitchen?

Because that was the largest room in the apartment.

Bernard, I wonder if we should do that again. I ask him this question first.

It's a bit stupid to repeat the same thing twice.

Telling you, why did you put your grand piano in your kitchen?

Because it was the largest room.

That's the only room the Baldwin Grand could

get into.

All other rooms were too small for the six foot three

inches grand to get into.

This is true. I had the opportunity to visit Thelonious in 1954 in New York and

to go to his house frequently. At the time, he did a little right foot in New

York.

Telenius, did you remember your first concert in Paris in 54?

Yeah, it was somewhere in the early 50s.

Telenius, do you remember

your

first concert in Paris in 54?

I don't want to say it.

Do you remember your first concert?

Huh? In Paris in 54.

Oh, I had my first concert here. Yeah. Right?

Sal Payet.

Sal Payet, yeah.

Do you remember? I think at the time, your music was too... avant.

Not too... But it's...

Okay.

But it's interesting, man.

Tell the news.

Did you remember your first concert in Paris in 54?

Yeah.

I think at the time your music was a little bit too avant -garde for the

audience. What do you think of that?

I don't understand what you said.

What are you asking me?

I see.

Your music was a little bit too difficult to avant -garde for the French

audience. What do you think of that?

Well, I mean, they had my... On the magazine, they had my picture on the

front page.

I mean, they had Jerry Mulligan, they had...

Jones is his name, a trumpet player.

And they had a lot of people, but they had my picture on the front page.

It was too avant -garde of what it was. I mean, whatever it was, it seemed like

that I was the star, but the people would come and

see it. But I wasn't getting the money, though.

Okay. Ten years. I'm sorry. I see my question.

Bernard, on peut effacer ça.

D 'accord?

I had no idea, I mean, my popularity in France until I got over here.

And when I got here, I mean, they had Jerry Mulligan and

treating them as the stars, but they had my picture on the

front page of the magazine for the concert.

And all that. And I couldn't get no musicians. I came over by myself.

And there was no musicians to work with me or anything.

Nobody let their musicians work with me.

And I practically had to pay by myself. Finally, I got some fellows to play with

me. And I was getting less money than anybody.

That's what happened.

At that time, he completely ignored the kind of popularity he had in France.

He found his picture on the front page of a jazz magazine.

But he was disappointed to see that there was no musician to accompany him.

And that on the other hand, he was certainly the one who received the

score.

That's all he can say about it.

But Bernard, I'm sorry to come back to that. I think it's better to erase it

this time.

There's nothing else to say because it's really obligatory, everything he says,

so we can't talk about it.

Especially since the organization...

How about let's go on to this demo and forget this TV program and read this all

over again for the demo.

Okay. Just one, just the last one.

Please, tell me the last one.

Yeah.

Yeah, about the, about piano.

You asked me about the first time I came to France. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

We don't do that.

And the first time I came to France, I was ossified all the time I was here.

No, no, we don't say anything about that, anyway.

That's why I made everything up.

It's no secret, is it?

No, but it's not nice.

It's not nice.

Yeah.

Can we talk a little bit about piano?

I'd like to know if you start, when you were young, you start to play some

classic music?

Yeah, I started... Wait a minute.

What do you mean?

I learned how to read music, and in the process of reading music, I mean I had

to learn to do classical music.

Please, I have to ask you.

When you were very young, did you start to play some classic music on the piano?

Yes, I tried to play the piano.

I mean, I learned how to play the piano on my own.

And then later on, I was just... I was just...

It was...

It was overruled. I mean, it was also sanctioned that I should take piano

lessons and study piano and learn how to read music.

Classical music was used in learning how to read.

Right.

It's okay now. It's okay.

Okay. Can you say something in French?

Merci beaucoup.

Bon, je vais encore dire un ou deux trucs.

Durant l 'hiver 1954 à New York, nous nous promenions un jour sur le port.

Thelonious and myself, and we looked at the boats.

And I remember very well that at a certain moment, Thelonious told me, ah,

I would like to take from these boats and go to Europe.

Well, it turns out that at that time, Charles de Launay and Jacques Souplet

prepared a great jazz festival, which means that in the evening, I called

Charles de Launay, and Charles gave me his agreement for Thelonious to come and

play at the Paris Jazz Festival 1954.

Unfortunately, I have to say that the music of Monk at the time was a little

difficult to grasp and the Parisian audience did not quite understand

that Monk played.

And the reception was not at all what it should have been four or five years

later, of course.

Thank you.

hey uh

You know, they're doing...

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Silence!

Silence!

Selenius Monk has just performed Hanabad Milna, his most famous composition.

Selenius, do you remember exactly when you composed the tune?

In the early 40s.

Bernard, I'm sorry, but I have to resume.

The sequence is not going at all.

Thank you.

Everyone has one William Temple, okay? One William Temple, two William Temple.

I don't see it.

One zone.

Yeah, you know, like...

Telenius, can you tell us, if you remember, when you composed this piece?

Telenius Monk just told us that he composed this piece at the beginning of

40s.

That is to say... Excuse me, I'm looking through the camera.

Telenius wrote Around Midnight at the beginning of the 40s. That is to say, to

what extent he was ahead of his contemporary musicians.

If you believe Marie -Lou, Telenius had, since 1939, a completely original

style. Two years later, in 1941, Telenius Monk plays every evening at the

Minton, a Harlem club that will play the greatest importance in the development

of modern jazz.

It's a kind of Bauhaus of jazz.

Musicians like Dizzy Gillespie come, join them, to learn what will be their

language, the language of modern jazz today.

Merde, pardon.

Inutile de parler de ça.

Nous retrouvons Telenius donc en 1946 -47 et il faut dire que

pendant une décade, il va vivre un petit peu dans l 'ombre.

Si ses amis, pionniers du jazz moderne comme Kenny Clark, Dizzy Gillespie,

Charlie Parker, Bud Powell et les autres, ont fait carrière, ils sont déjà

célèbres dans le monde, Telenius, lui...

It stays in the shadows and it happens very rarely at the head of a trio or a

small orchestra in some small clubs in Harlem or Brooklyn.

And it has to wait until 1957.

It goes up, as they say, to a quartet where John Coltrane plays. It happens in

New York at Five Spots. And there, we start seriously to talk about Tennis

We record it in turn.

And its name is spread all over the world.

In

1957,

Telenus formed a quartet with John Coltrane at Five Spot in New York.

And from there began the international success of Telenus. And then we see it

all over the world.

His success even became quite important so that Roger Vadim, for example, asked

him to do, I think in 1958, the music of his film, Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Thelonious Monk has a face that apparently inspires modelers and

with an astonishing physique, very inspired.

Thelonious Monk is a truly extraordinary character. He has an excessively

relaxed way of seeing things in life.

I'm going to tell you a little story that I'm going to tell you now and in a

club in Brooklyn a while ago, Thelonious Monk played in the company of Sonny

Rollin, a well -known tenor saxophonist.

The club was full of young blacks who danced magnificently, and at a certain

moment, two of them were beaten.

They were beaten with a knife. It was a fight, as we see in the most beautiful

American films of the youth.

The girls started screaming, the tables were turned over, the chairs were

broken. We were in the middle of all this incredible commotion.

Thelonious continued to play as if absolutely nothing had happened.

Of course, the cabaret fell closed on the evening. We went out with Thelonious

and I said to him, but finally Thelonious, how did you know that you

chance to continue to play as if nothing had happened?

And Thelonious replied to me, but if nothing had happened, or almost, it was

absolutely not worth it.

One day, Il y a quelques années, un critique s 'adresse à Thelonius en ces

termes.

Mon cher Thelonius, il me semble qu 'à la 25e mesure de votre solo, de telle

place, de telle distance, de telle année, de tel endroit.

A cette 25e mesure, donc, vous n 'êtes pas sans remettre en question toute la

structure de vos conceptions rythmiques, de vos... Thelonius s 'interrompt et

lui dit, oh, moi, vous savez, tout ce que je fais, c 'est...

Or me, you know, I play without more.

It's not good. It turns out it's not good, by the way.

Thelonious is a man petrified of the tradition of guitar.

We see that in his youth, he listened to musicians like Fats Waller or James

Johnson, all the great pianists of Harlem, who played alone and who

rhythm with their left hand, making a bass, an accord, a bass, an accord, and

that in all the pieces, all the evening.

Thelonious knows how to do it.

We realized it tonight.

But at that, but...

Mais à cela, dans cette base rythmique, il ajoute tout ce que son talent

extraordinaire a pu apporter dans votre cuisine.

Mais vous voyez, tellement qu 'il faut noter aussi son toucher si puissant.

Il lui donne une sonorité si platée, parce que c 'est magique.

Dans une cuisine, à côté d 'un réchaud à gaz, d 'un évier, Raymond Thévenus, je

vous le disais tout à l 'heure, est un personnage extraordinaire.

What about the...