Thelonious Monk's Cosmopolitan Ideal

Thelonious Monk's attitude toward race can be traced to his upbringing in San Juan Hill. This community was familiar with harsh police brutality and violent race wars in addition to the typical segregation of the times (Kelley, p. 18-9). As a result, Monk was familiar with the attitudes associated with racial empowerment groups and recognized that it was not in his best interest to be belligerent when discussing race. In addition, San Juan Hill was a racial melting pot with black, white, and immigrant cultures intermixing, and Monk would have found it difficult to create his eclectic style of jazz without integrating all of these influences into his playing. Even in youth Monk was above racial conflict, as Kelley describes his collaboration with Morris Simpson, the son of West Indian immigrants (p. 35). His lessons with classical piano teacher Harry Colomby and his education at Juilliard fused with the stride piano he played with Alberta Simmons and the latin dance styles he learned from the West Indian, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants. In transcending racial politics, Thelonious Monk was attempting to create a cosmopolitan "Bohemian" culture that fused the best aspects of all cultures. Patronage by upper class families such as the Rothschilds supports the claim that bebop artists such as Thelonious Monk were attempting to create music which could be appreciated by everyone regardless of upbringing.

It is difficult to believe that Monk was able to maintain his enlightened racial attitudes in spite of segregation and discrimination by whites. Perhaps his experiences with the police and other whites in San Juan Hill prepared him for this discrimination, but Monk was victimized by a legal system which gave the racist police officers too much discretionary power. They used this power to hassle black bebop artists and to arrest and fine them for drug possession or some other non-violent crime. Monk in particular has his cabaret card revoked by the police, and without this card Monk would be unable to play in New York clubs.

Monk's ability to avoid racial conflict, however, allowed him to create a community that was above class distinctions in the interest of good music. This community was only judgmental when it came to the music, and as a result Thelonious Monk and the bebop musicians at Minton's and the Five Spot were able to draw an audience which ranged from poor immigrants to rich whites such as Nica de Koenigswarter. Bebop is considered one of many modernist styles which has begun a movement toward a cosmopolitan "Black Bohemianism" in culture, toward music and art which can be enjoyed by all regardless of class distinctions.

Race during the Swing era

Given that race had always been a discourse in the history of jazz, why did race become explicitly written and talked about in the 1930s during the “Swing Era?”

Race became an important issue to talk and write about during the 1930s swing era because of the acceptance of jazz as the popular music by mainstream Americans during this period. Before this time period, jazz was mainly consumed live in clubs in cultural melting pots such as Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City, or New York, where race was not as big of an issue. With the rise of the radio, Americans could listen to music in their homes for free, which was especially important due to the Depression. As a result, people had to listen to music while being unaware of the racial characteristics of the musicians, and many Americans must have been confused by the similarity of white jazz to black jazz, especially if they were racist and believed that whites were better than blacks at everything, even playing music. John Hammond is an especially interesting jazz patronizer and critic during this period, who actually flipped this stereotype onto its head by saying that blacks were racially superior to whites in playing music.

In addition, growing acceptance and consumption of black culture, especially by the younger generations who loved swinging music to dance to, must have made the older generations uneasy. Many efforts were made to frame the African Americans as Godless Communists, often because the Communist Party had fought for their rights, and as a result many people accused jazz of being evil and unapproved, causing your body to gyrate in Satanic revelry.

In reality, however, blacks and their culture were making progress toward being accepted as equal by average American, and the popularization of jazz is only one piece of evidence. While it may have been due to his submissiveness to stand up for his rights, Duke Ellington was able to book his black band at the all-white Cotton Club from 1927-1931. John Hammond put a black pianist into Benny Goodman's white band, and this in addition to the controversial remark won more ground toward the equal acceptance of black culture. Ultimately, I believe that the American public had begun to realize a fascination with foreign cultures and more specifically African American jazz during this period of time.