Product Details

• Actors: Thelonious Monk, Nica De Koenigswarter, Barry Harris, Bob Jones (IV), Johnny Griffin
• Directors: Charlotte Zwerin
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 30, 2001
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301810619
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,548 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

This exemplary documentary about seminal jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk reaps the benefits of multiple blessings, including the skilled editorial hand of director Charlotte Zwerin and the patronage of executive producer (and erstwhile jazz pianist) Clint Eastwood. Most vital is the use of extensive 1968 footage, shot by Michael and Christian Blackwood, documenting the sometimes moody, sometimes puckish Monk in the studio, on tour, and off stage, which on its own would make this essential jazz viewing.

In post-World War II America, few cultural upheavals matched bebop for sheer exhilaration. Spawned by jazz musicians whose paydays typically came with larger swing ensembles, bop was as much bastard as stepchild, refining the technical ambitions of its parent while breaking free of swing's formalism to play fast and loose with harmony, melody, and tempo. That mercurial spirit made heroes of high-flying, technically flamboyant players like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Monk, by contrast, was as distinctive for his silences, crafting often skeletal melodies distinguished by unexpected, skewed harmonies. At one point dubbed the "high priest of bebop," he was more Zen archer, threading notes, warping chord structure, or stabbing "wrong" keys with a seeming looseness that in hindsight sounds as precise as haiku.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser provides an intelligent portrait of this often reclusive, sometimes difficult artist, including telling glimpses of his volatility. A stormy studio session with Teo Macero, then Columbia Records' preeminent jazz producer, speaks volumes about Monk's very private approach to his muse. Perceptive interviews and glimpses of Monk's sunnier moments provide added depth, yet the real triumph is the generous catalog of classic Monk songs captured on camera. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dead Sea Scrolls of Jazz?, May 12, 2001

By 

The Sanity Inspector (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thelonius Monk - Straight No Chaser [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Here it is-Clint Eastwood's *other* jazz film. The core of this biographical documentary about the innovative pianist and co-founder of bebop Thelonious Monk is footage of a recording date and tour from 1968, plus priceless scenes of Monk offstage. Filmmaker Bruce Ricker lets the 1968 film, shot by Michael and Christian Blackwood, speak for itself, interspersing stills, interviews, and some equally priceless early Fifties television footage. The 1968 film is shot in gorgeous black and white; the dark smoky club is especially impressive, visually.

Monk himself is imposing in black and white, with his greatcoat, pointy beard, and assorted headwear. In one scene he rolls into the recording studio wearing a lensless eyeglass frame and a Polish cavalry officer's cap. He shambles through the film, all sweat and bulk and cigarettes and raspy voice. There are a couple of great shots of his distinctive, spinning dancing, full of little surprises.

The recording studio scene is fascinating on a couple of levels. We get to see Monk and sax sideman Charlie Rouse go over the score of a song together. But we are also reminded that this is the late Sixties, when jazz isn't selling, and Monk is not a legend yet. The clueless producer and recording engineer, while friendly, keep telling him to play something to warm up, and then neglecting to record it. Monk finally loses patience and stomps off to a corner to angrily suck down a cigarette.

The film also records a European tour, which also has its problems. The octet that is supplied to him for the tour is oversized and under-rehearsed. They learn their parts on the plane to London, and can't get it together onstage the first night there. Much to the band's embarrassment, Monk has to stop songs to get everyone back on track. But in a day or two they shine, and receive rapturous applause.

The tour has its lighter moments. Perhaps the funniest moment is Monk lying in his bed in a Copenhagen hotel, trying to get his familiar down home cooking from room service. "Say, man; you got any chicken livers?" "Umm...Ve haff chicken sahlad." "You got any regular liver?" "Regular..." "Beef liver?" "Umm...Ja, ve haff beef liffer."

Here and there we meet a surprise guest. Some late Fifties/early Sixties New York club concert footage shows a room full of heavy-lidded white hipsters enjoying music by Monk and none other than John Coltrane. In a club kitchen, Monk clowns with Baroness Nica, who befriended many jazz musicians and in whose apartment Charlie Parker died. There's a montage of his records, including _Underground_, which boasts the single coolest album cover in the history of recorded music. The interview segments, with T. S. Monk, Jr. and Monk's manager are touching, giving insight as to how Monk struggled with the black dog, depression. And a couple of greybeards play some of Monk's music arranged for two pianos. It's lovely, fitting for the tribute it is. Just like this film.

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Why nobody just wanna do what I ask 'em to do?!", September 12, 2003

By 

Daniel Fineberg (Northridge, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thelonious Monk - Straight No Chaser (DVD)

So exclaims a frustrated Monk during a late 1960s Columbia recording session, after finishing a haunting run-through of "Ugly Beauty" and learning that producer Teo Macero neglected to record it. The movie is filled with wonderful private moments like these, though I can't say how much interest it will hold for those not familiar with Monk. For me, however, and for many others who are infatuated with him and his music, the footage in this documentary is gold. The character of Monk is rounded out for us, and we find that he was just as unique and strange in his life as he was in his music. He was truly in his own world, and though for 90 minutes we see him up close, with his musicians, with his wife Nellie, with the Baroness Nica, see his bizarre behavior backstage, at the airport, in the hotel, we are no closer to getting inside his head. For that, one simply needs to hear the music.
And the music collected in the movie is astonishing--An early television appearance where Monk is miffed by Count Basie staring at him across the piano during a performance...several shows with a quartet including Charlie Rouse...great footage of the big band sessions of the mid 60s, with Rouse, Johnny Griffin, and Phil Woods scrambling to learn the arrangements...and the great Columbia session, where Monk becomes visibly annoyed, but still has time for a wonderfully tender moment with pal Teo. There are interviews with Monk's managers, his son, Charlie Rouse, and a fine piano duet of "Well You Needn't" by Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris, reminding one and all that not only was Monk one of the most distinctive piano players in jazz, but that, along with Ellington and Charles Mingus, he was one of the most brilliant composers as well.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Butterfly they tried to catch, May 15, 2003

By 

Mr. DS Graham "daniel_sgraham" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thelonious Monk - Straight No Chaser (DVD)

"Straight No Chaser" offers an abundance of wonderful footage of Thelonious Monk in concert, in transit, at home, in rehearsal, eating, sleeping, spinning in circles, in the studio, signing autographs and of course creating magic at the keyboard. Watching this film is like watching the weather on any given day. At one moment it's cloudy and grey, the next sunny and blue and in between anything could happen, and does. Monk clearly had serious and long term mental health problems, but the music the man created is his real legacy and there is plenty of it here. Towards the end of the film Milt Jackson, Art Farmer, Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris try to work out the chord progression to one on Monk's songs and as things get more and more complex Milt Jackson (who played with Monk) simply smiles to himself with a combination of perplexity and amusement at the sheer genius of the music.

The excitement and sense of discovery one feels in witnessing this precious footage does become tempered by the lack of insight into the nature of his music and the full impact of it upon other musicians. The interviews are revealing, especially Harry Colomby (Monk's manager) and a visibly emotional TS Monk Jr. who with understandable difficulty recalls his father's mental problems. Ultimately though, the uniqueness of Thelonious Monk's music shines through. His television performance of "Just A Gigolo" about half way through is inspiringly honest, utterly sincere (even in it's sardonic humour) and completely absorbing.

Monk's most lasting musical legacy was probably his honesty as a musician and as a man, the rarest quality of all.