THE BEGINNING OF ALWAYS, IS FRIENDSHIP
Subway Tales
Thelonious Monk, John Dewey & the #1 Train
It is as if both men by virtue of energy and mutual regard, caught the glance of the other at the same moment. Monk wears a green tweed woolen suit his derby hat with flaps that look like Arthur Conan Doyle, and John Dewey, in a nondescript grey suit, blue windbreaker and a New York Yankees baseball cap. It is the 110th street station Cathedral Parkway, both men mill about the narrow platform beside the newspaper stand waiting for the uptown train. Monk ambles like a sleek linebacker over to the tall, Lincoln like profile of a man, and addresses Dewey, with deference. His face is lit into a smile.
TM: Um… With all due respect it’s usually me who’s bein’ intruded on but I couldn’t help it. I’ve saw you at my gigs at the Vanguard. You was like a regular. Sat left of stage with an old briefcase under your seat. You know its funny how shit happens Doc. If I can call you that.
JD: With pleasure. Mr. Monk. I know your stride and the lumbering grace anywhere, if I may say. Good to see you. Do you come back often?
TM: Yea well death been good to me. Royalties and all. I come back to listen. These young cats keepin’ the flame lit. You too. Lookin’ good for a professor.
JD: Well I never liked offices. Always liked constitutionals. Long walks north on Riverside Park. Made that a habit. Even with my students. Mr. Monk, I’ll have you know how I have long admired the music you made and the culture of jazz which you are an essential part of.
TM: Hmmmm. The church of Dizzy, Bird, Max, Pops, Billie, Mingus. Duke. Can’t overlook the Duke. And the Count for that matter. But yea. Yea. All cultural warriors. Innovators of the freshest bad assed kind. Thank you.
JD: You were an icon who continues to stand out, if I do say.
TM: Kind of you to say JD. You good with JD?
JD: I’m good with it. Do you recall what Dr King said about Jazz?
TM: Tell me doc.
JD: He said jazz is triumphant music. That the power of the freedom rights movement came from jazz. That it was universal because Everybody has the blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy….
TM: You know how Ellington said “it don’t mean a thing, if it aint got that swing” well that’s shorthand for life. That’s cause jazz tells a story that anyone can understand. Straight cat that Martin was JD. No shittin’. Pure truth clear as a North Carolina morning. Clean as sister Sarah hitting those long notes on “Fly me to the Moon.” Listen Doc, Sorry we never connected before. We moved in different circles.
JD: But circles whose orbit had a common center.
TM: What was that?
JD: Our humanity. Your humility goes along way Thelonious but let us not forget the gift your artistry gave the world.
TM: Merci Doc. Makes me think of Mary Lou Williams playing “God Bless The Child?” You know it? It can make a stone weep. Now I’ve got one for you.
JD: Certainly.
TM: One day I find in the back seat of my car this book that you wrote. Back of my thunderbird. Think Sonny must have left it after our gig in the Bronx. He was always reading something. But my question is: “Democracy & Education”?
JD: You mean the title?
TM: I mean Yes doc. Cause no school I ever attended in San Juan Hill had any democracy in it except for when they closed school and put voting machines in the cafeteria. You know what I mean?
JD: The title was aspirational Thelonious. By the way, I always enjoyed the titles you gave your songs. But I digress. It was a moment in historical time when America was facing of the rise of global fascism. Just look around now. That’s why I stopped in. Public education has a constitutional responsibility to teach and practice democratic behavior. We both know where that has gone.But more importantly, where it must go.
TM: For real JD. if we’re talkin’ democracy, what about putting kids through metal detector machines before they can get into school buildings? Excuse me, Where’s the democracy in that? We don’t trust kids. That’s what they do to us in the joint. Only difference was, you don’t get dismissed at no 3 o’clock.
JD: I am startled by the same contradiction and the brutality and trauma that children experience each day. Lock down drills, shelter in place. Our new vocabulary.
TM: You know Coltrane’s’ “Alabama” and Max and Sonny’s “Freedom Suite”? That’s the whole story there. What’s worse Doc — slavery and lynchings or this fuckin’ craziness where people carry guns like it was some John Wayne movie breakin’ into schools and shootin’ up children and teachers? My illness was genetic. This one’s cultural.
JD: Remember that Maya Angelou poem —
I know why the caged bird sings/
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage/
Can seldom see through His bars of rage/
His wings are clipped and His feet are tied/
So he opens his throat to sing….
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
TM: That was me comin’ up JD. School was a whole lot a birds in cages. Breaks my heart JD that my grandkids go to some Charter school that resembles more paramilitary than prep school. Uh hum. Tell me about it.
JD: This is not education. It’s training. Testing has become a systematic and racist tool for reducing intelligence to a number 2 pencil. Your grands and every child deserves more than that. Every child should get to be the underwriter of what they love, who they want to become.
TM: Strange world John. Used to be you could find the Post or Times or the Daily News on a subway seat. No chance these days. Folks don’t read. People be walkin’ round like they were astronauts with headphones and earplugs. How do they hear themselves think?
JD: They don’t. It is the age of distraction Thelonious. They’re called smart phones. Now schools want to ban them. We’ve become afraid of silence and of solitude. Either or thinking never gets you out of the box. It just builds more boxes. We need to relearn with our children how to listen and observe.
TM: Tell me about it JD. People always thought I was checked out. What they don’t know is the kind solitude of living inside your mind. Watching the river from Hoboken I saw god’s kingdom in the New York skyline. It’s how I learned harmonies from observing moonlight and water. You dig?
JD: I’ve been meaning to ask, if you don’t mind, why you stopped playing. You fell silent for 7, 8 years? And then you left the world. Why?
TM: That’s a straight no chaser question Doc. Let’s just say I had my demons, they pursued me like undercover cops, and after a while they caught up to me. I’d be holed up in my bedroom and pace the floor for days. The man misdiagnosed me, and you know, it just happened. Bipolar shit. The voices started to sound like Ornette Coleman going off, crazy like in my head. I believe that everyone is a genius at being themselves. I stopped being myself. I just lost the connection to the world. Something got short circuited. Yea the music kept playing in my head. I just didn’t have the chops to share it any more.
JD: I appreciate you sharing that Thelonious. Listen, it is supper time. Do you like Chinese food? There’s a place on the corner of 116th and Broadway I used to frequent.
TM: I like it JD. Next to the old Chock Full of Nuts.
Monk smiles the big appreciative smile of a hungry man.
TM: Doc, you ever hear “the beginning of always is friendship? Bud Powell taught me that. Let’s walk JD. I never refuse a meal except when I was gigging.
As they emerge onto Broadway, Monk lets out a laugh that sounds like Roland Kirk on flute, making even the traffic lights flutter green.
Subway Tales is a series of dialogues between historical figures —
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