Thelonious Monk
'Round Midnight

The rules of love are simple: you cannot own what you love and you cannot love what you own.

And love feeds on beauty and beauty hides in imperfection.

Imperfection, Thelonious, and ‘Round Midnight: the straight, hard fingers shouldn't play like that. The raised elbows shouldn't be there and then, those feet. Those feet that move so far from the pedals.

Everything is out of place. Everything is as it should be.

(The theme unfolds in minor, slow, nocturnal, but the chromatics that follow its development produce effects that seem like detuning. Then an arpeggio in sixteenth notes and a descending coda with a two-measure motif repeated three times, with variation of the coda, then an ascending fourth interval. Part A closes with a descending cadence that, in the refrain, rises back to the tonic.)

Imperfection: her eyes shouldn’t be that color, her nose shouldn’t be like that. That little wrinkle shouldn’t make her gaze seem so tired, and her hair has too much desire to be free. She has an irregular face. And I love it. Everything is as it should be.

And then she looks at me.

She laughs.

And the whole world gains meaning. The corners take on light. The unjust remains unjust, and the wrong remains wrong, but finally, I accept it in peace. My bruises stop hurting. Even the mosquitoes, it seems to me, have the right to exist.

I look at Her and think of Pannonica, the first time she heard ‘Round Midnight.

Nica, who had a butterfly's name and a queen's surname: Rothschild.

Daughter of a butterfly hunter imprisoned in a banker’s body. Died by suicide because a butterfly hunter cannot stay in a banker’s body.

Pannonica was 35 years old the first time she heard ‘Round Midnight. 35 years and five children, a handsome, rich, and charming husband – Julius –, an incredible life: she had driven fast cars, planes (even war ones). She had fought against the Nazis in Africa in De Gaulle’s troops and had even been decorated. Now that she was the baroness De Koenigswater, she lived in Mexico, and her life was foam and silk and sparkle of diamonds.

But she had never heard ‘Round Midnight.

Then it happened: it was at her pianist friend Teddy Wilson’s house. She had stopped by to greet him. She was in a hurry: she had to catch a plane.

And yet, suddenly the whole world gained meaning. The corners took light. The unjust always remained unjust, and wrong, wrong but, finally, she could accept it in peace. Her bruises no longer hurt and even the mosquitoes seemed to have the right to exist.

She forced Teddy to play it twenty times.

She missed that plane. Then, slowly, she lost everything else too.

And she went looking for Monk.

It took her years. It was in ’54 in Paris after a concert. And for 28 years she never left him again. She took care of him, looked after him, paid doctors, lawyers, and bills for him, got him the cabaret card back without which he couldn’t play in New York, even went to jail for him, when she told the police that the drugs found on them were hers.

She endured insults, gossip, offenses, ironies, but was never his woman. She always remained a step behind.

Because there was Nellie.

You cannot own what you love and you cannot love what you own.

(The second part of the piece features antiphonal repetition of a two-measure motif followed, again, by two descending cadences.)

Nica became “the Baroness of Jazz.” Her suite at the Stanhope hotel was open to all musicians. She had a piano brought in. There was music all night.

And everyone came. Everyone. Everyone you can think of. They were there. And to all of them, she opened the door.

Because that's how it works. She made me understand it, the night she licked away my wounds (the marks are still there, but they no longer hurt). You can’t change the world; you just have to accept it; you take a small corner, you clean it, you warm it, close the windows to keep the stench out, and make yourself comfortable there. But you leave the door open. Because without Love the rot of the World enters just the same.

The door must remain open.

And one day, Charlie Parker knocked at Pannonica's door.

Bird was unwell. He needed some peace and a place to stop. It took him three days to die. He fell asleep in front of the TV.

He finally found some peace.

But Nica was overwhelmed by scandal. “Bop King Dies in Heiress’s Flat” headlined the papers. The Rothschild family took the opportunity to disinherit her and impose silence on her. Julius took the opportunity to divorce (“friend of the negroes” he hissed at her) and take away her children. The Stanhope hotel took the opportunity to kick her out.

Of course, she didn’t go broke: she was left with a decent income with which she got a house around the Hudson (“the Palace,” Monk called it), the title, more than three hundred cats, and above all, her famous Bentley.

In the Palace, she had a piano brought in and still, left the door open.

(Harmonically, part A is based on a progression: I - VI - II7 - V7 [measures 1-2]. Then by a sequence: I-IV [measure 3]. And finally, a descending modulation emphasizing the theme's flow and leading to a brief change to the subdominant key [the sequence B♭-7 E♭7 hinting at a II-V7-I progression].)

Instead, one day, Bud Powell knocked on Monk's door.

His friend Bud. It was for him, to defend him, that Thelonious had gambled his cabaret card and the possibility of playing and working in New York. Bud Powell, the greatest pianist in Jazz history. And if you think that’s an exaggerated statement, then it means you’ve never listened to him. And if you’ve never listened to him, well, what can I tell you?

Bud had come away from Paris. Health issues. He had come to die in New York. He knew it. And Francis Paudras, the man who had saved his life in Paris and who was always with him now, knew it too (their extraordinary manly friendship will be subtly narrated in a fine Tavernier film titled – need I say it? - “‘Round Midnight”).

And maybe Monk knew it too.

The two stared at each other for a long time without saying anything. Then Monk said to him: “come, I’ll make you the airplane.” Paudras didn't understand. The piano occupied the entire living room and ended in the kitchen, with dishes to wash piled on the lid. "Thelonious raised his hands above the keys, looked down and pressed both pedals. With a slow and studied motion, he pressed the keys hard and remained so, head down, bent, body crouched over the keyboard, until the sound faded away." Paudras finally understood, he too had lived through the war: that sound perfectly imitated the thunder of bombers.

It was the airplane.

Thelonious stared at Bud for a long moment. Then Bud started laughing, wouldn’t stop. He laughed to tears.

When you listen to “‘Round Midnight” or “Pannonica,” “Well, You Needn’t” or “Misterioso” or whatever you like, imagine Monk like this, laughing with Bud. Forget the stories about the crazy genius who collected hats and wore a lettuce in his lapel, who danced around the piano and couldn’t speak. And think of Bud like this: laughing with his friend.

You.

Because I can’t. I can’t help thinking of Bud, locked in a psychiatric hospital, drawing piano keyboards on the walls, staring at them, playing them in his mind, trying to fight the darkness.

Trying to fight the silence.

(After a brief foray into B♭ [measure 5] the main key is reintroduced followed by a new descending modulation.).

And then, one day, Thelonious got lost. It was after a concert. The cops who saw him walking, gaze fixed, arms outstretched, following an imaginary thread, in an airport, didn’t think twice: they clubbed him and took him away. A negro of over two hundred pounds staring at you and not responding to your questions doesn’t leave you indifferent.

Nellie ran to get him.

Then they went to Nica. “I am very sick,” he said. His wings had become too large, they wouldn’t allow him to walk anymore. The two women decided he would stay there, at the “castle.”

It took six years. Six years of mutism, of silence. Not once did he touch the piano Nica had brought into his room. Six years before he left us definitively, but he had left much earlier.

The silence had won. The door remained closed.

(Section B begins with a progression: VI7[b5]-II7-V7 repeated twice and followed by a II-V7-I sequence in the key of B major, followed by a series of colorist chords leading back to the reiteration of part A.)

Now, you’ll say I haven’t talked to you about music, that this isn’t a review. It’s true: it isn’t a review. I wanted to tell the incredible love story of Pannonica and Thelonious. But it isn’t true that I haven’t talked about music: I’ve talked about love, death, friendship, and doors to keep open. And this is Music.

You can’t describe Music. It’s like with energy: you can only investigate its effects, not perceive its form.

And Pannonica?

She went on, published a book (Three Wishes), took photographs, hung around musicians. They dedicated a lot of music to her, even beautiful music. Then her niece wrote a book about her, they made a film. She collaborated with Clint Eastwood on the screenplay of “Bird.” She cared for her cats.

In short, she left the door open.

Then, as is normal, as is right, she died.

She wanted to be cremated and asked that her ashes be thrown into the Hudson.

The day didn’t matter, the way didn’t matter. Only the hour mattered. She asked one thing: that the hour when they scattered her ashes be that hour.

’Round midnight.

(Now forgive me, Pannonica, I've written too much. I leave you. I need to go to Her, to lose myself in the improbable line of her nose: the World is starting to lose sense again and the mosquitoes are starting to bother me again).