Light Blue

March 29, 2025 [Music]

I have been obsessed with the Thelonious Monk composition 'Light Blue'.

There is just something so mysterious about it.

Like many of Monk's tunes, if left alone, it will continue round and around until the end of time.

Not to be too hyperbolic (although Monk, if anyone, is certainly deserving of hyperbole), each repetition contains within it the potential to reveal something new in the listener, in the player, in experience itself.

The same quality can be found in the music of Erik Satie (think 'Vexations', a piece intended to be played no less than 840 times without pause). And in fact, many parallels can be drawn between Monk and Satie's humour, purity of line, and a kind of harmonic brutalism.

I'm thinking of the way Monk will 'state' pure chords and intervals fearlessly and the way Satie presented basic triads and melody as fresh and new (inviting mockery from critics and respect from his much more 'sophisticated' contemporaries—Ravel, Debussy, et al.).

Both composers notice the beauty of sounds that are often dismissed as 'elementary', rather presenting them as 'pure', 'cutting', or even 'funny'. Both composers are instantly recognisable, utterly timeless, and to my ears, they are like aliens, and we are blessed by their visitation.

Back to 'Light Blue'—there is an interesting recording of Monk teaching Art Taylor this rhythm.

They go on for around 14 minutes while Art Taylor respectfully tries again and again to fit what is otherwise a very basic rhythm into the strange, hypnotic cycle of the tune 'Light Blue'.

It's frankly a relief to realise that even the great drummer Art Taylor (a human being) was capable of getting mixed up!