Around midnight I start to prepare my first and only number for the day. I wait for everything to calm down and the beasts take control of the silence and I start to roll. I am a good example of denying the theory that practice develops skills. Trying, I think of theories.
There is a theory that Thelonious Monk composed the first version of the song “Round Midnight” in 1936. It was a small warmup before placing the foundations of bebop – coming up with a song that started its endless travel under the name of “Grand Finale”. He was nineteen years old.
“Sometimes your advantage is exactly that the people think you’re crazy” – he said and he showed what I held between my fingers. I inhaled as if it was my last one and I offered it to him.
Kerouac assumed, but I am certain – it was Monk, nobody else, it was him passing by the tailor shop at 42nd street, only couple of years before World War II, when he heard in the loudspeaker of his mind the real mistakes of the jazz until then and using them, he created bebop. Others tried to claim the tribute for this, and Monk, this wonderful crazy Thelonious did not care, he only continued to think and compose. There was so much left to discover.