Wednesday Coffeehouse: Theolonious Monk & Lenny Bruce

Welcome to the coffeehouse! Today we feature jazz pianist, Theolonious Sphere Monk, and the foremost comedian of the Beat Generation, Lenny Bruce.

Robin D. G. Kelley, Professor of Anthropology, African American Studies, and Jazz Studies at Columbia University, says of Theo Monk:

Today Thelonious Monk is widely accepted as a genuine master of American music. His compositions constitute the core of jazz repertory and are performed by artists from many different genres. He is the subject of award winning documentaries, biographies and scholarly studies, prime time television tributes, and he even has an Institute created in his name. The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz was created to promote jazz education and to train and encourage new generations of musicians. It is a fitting tribute to an artist who was always willing to share his musical knowledge with others but expected originality in return.

Lenny Bruce, like Theolonious Monk, was a trendsetter. He brought onto the stage a kind of humor that not been shared in public since before the Victorian age. David Skover writes:

Lenny Bruce's words had the power to provoke laughter and debate—as well as shock and outrage. It was the force of his voice that would place him on the wrong side of the law in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York…

Lenny committed his life to telling the truth. But the truth he told infuriated those in power, and authorities in the largest, most progressive cities in the country worked effortlessy to put him in jail. To them, Lenny's words were filthy and depraved. But to his friends—the hip, the discontented, the fringe—his words were not only sharp and hilarious, they were a light in the dark to the repressed society of the early 1960's.

Please don’t be concerned about Lenny’s poem below, Psycopathia Sexualis; it is very tame.

We begin with a jazz set featuring Theolonious Monk. So grab a cuppa joe and jive to the beat.


Theolonious Monk: April in Paris


Theolonious Monk: Introspection

Before Monk’s second set, allow me to introduce the foremost comedian of the Beat Generation, Mr. Lenny Bruce.

Lenny Bruce: Psycopathia Sexualis

And now, back to the magic fingers of Theo Monk.

Theolonious Monk: Round Midnight


Theolonious Monk: Theolonious

Previous Coffeehouses featuring

Leonard Cohen

Bob Gibson & Bob Camp

The Kingston Trio

Carmen McRae, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Steve Allen, Dave Brubeck, Del Close & John Brent

Judy Collins & Arlo Guthrie

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

In case anyone is interested, all of the audios I post are from my own CDs.