\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tA flyer for the Palo Alto concert. \u201cHe had a soft spot,\u201d Monk\u2019s son T.S. says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised he agreed to play a concert for a kid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBy the time of the \u201cPaly High\u201d show in 1968, Monk had been on top of the jazz game for more than 20 years. Since his breakthrough debut, The Genius of Modern Music Vol. 1,<\/em> his cubist compositions and percussive piano had garnered international acclaim. \u201cThere is hardly a jazz musician playing who is not in some way indebted to him,\u201d as Time<\/em> wrote. Musician, composer, and die-hard fan Jon Batiste considers Monk decades ahead of his time. \u201cIt\u2019s like somebody saying, \u2018I\u2019m going to take an engine from the 1930s and I\u2019m going to do stuff to it that in 2025 is still considered state of the art,\u2019\u201d he tells me. \u201cThat\u2019s the type of artistic mind that is in the 0.1 percent of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tBut the \u201cmad genius,\u201d as Monk was often called, much to his chagrin, had a method behind him. Despite his off-kilter style, T.S. recalls, \u201che was very, very methodical. He really did his fucking work.\u201d Few understood the grind behind the artistic brilliance: the obsessive repetition, the sleepless nights, the meticulous labor behind even a single bar of music. \u201cI remember him going over this four-measure phrase all day and all night for weeks,\u201d T.S. recalls. At the time, it sounded like nonsense to the boy. \u201cI remember saying to myself, \u2018What the hell is he writing?\u2019\u201d T.S. says. \u201c\u2018This is going nowhere.\u2019\u201d But the bars became \u201cOska T.,\u201d one of his standout tunes.<\/p>\n \n\tEven Monk\u2019s theatricality was deliberate. He had handkerchiefs custom-made, four feet wide, that he\u2019d stuff into his suit pocket and pull out halfway through a show like a magician. When he\u2019d stand beside his piano and start spinning in circles, it wasn\u2019t some strange mania as some suspected. He was dancing, doing a series of moves rooted in African dance steps passed down from his family in North Carolina.<\/p>\n \n\tHis exaggerated movements at the piano \u2014 stabbing the keys and shuffling his feet \u2014 weren\u2019t bizarre quirks. They came from church. Monk had spent years as a boy playing at Pentecostal revivals, where people spoke in tongues and collapsed onstage. His disjointed, dissonant rhythms were his attempt to accompany the chaos \u2014 like providing a real-time soundtrack to a strange silent movie. His dancing feet came from playing the organ as a child and working the pedals, a rhythm he never lost. He played his favorite game, pool, like he played music: precise, propulsive, and without mercy. T.S. never won a single game. Neither did John Coltrane, who once lost 59 out of 60 ping-pong matches in a single night.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the same brilliance that elevated him isolated him. Monk\u2019s sensitivity ran deep, even if the world mistook it for madness. He had an unusually hard time with death \u2014 so hard, he couldn\u2019t bring himself to attend his own mother\u2019s funeral. The deaths of Coltrane and Bud Powell devastated him. He was becoming more and more silent. One night, T.S. found his father standing by the kitchen sink staring blankly at the ceiling. \u201cHe seemed like he was in another world,\u201d T.S. recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what the fuck was going on. I was terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMonk, the artist Coltrane had called \u201ca musical architect of the highest order,\u201d was struggling to keep his mind together. \u201cSometimes he doesn\u2019t know exactly what he\u2019s saying,\u201d his wife Nellie told T.S. and his younger sister, Barbara, one day. \u201cSometimes he may not necessarily look like he recognizes you. We have to protect him. We have to look out for him, because if we don\u2019t, nobody else will.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI got it all of a sudden,\u201d T.S. recalls. \u201cI realized that my mother was saying that Dad needs us and so don\u2019t take it to heart when he goes off the deep end.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe family didn\u2019t know at the time that Monk was suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which could have been eased with proper treatment. But they faced an impossible obstacle. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about America,\u201d as T.S. puts it. \u201cMental illness among African Americans was not a priority.\u201d One hospital wanted to give him shock treatment, until a friend intervened. Doctors overmedicated him on heavy sedatives such as Thorazine, dulling his faculties even further. The family feared what might come if they reached out again. \u201cTheir answer was lock him up, put him in a fucking straitjacket and sit his ass down,\u201d T.S. says.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tJohn Coltrane called Monk \u201ca musical architect of the highest order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJim Marshall Photography LLC<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAs Monk\u2019s silent episodes mounted, so did his financial strains. With musical tastes changing, Monk\u2019s records hadn\u2019t been selling like they used to, and he had fallen into debt to his label, Columbia. In a pandering attempt to make Monk hip to the hippie generation, the label staged an elaborate cover shoot with him at a piano by a tied-up Nazi, bottles of wine, and what appeared to be a pirate. \u201cThey had a Sgt. Pepper\u2019s <\/em>kind of outfit for him to wear,\u201d T.S. recalls. \u201cBut when he got to the set for that, he basically said, \u2018Fuck that. I got my Brooks Brothers shit. What the fuck y\u2019all talking about?\u2019\u201d He posed in his own anachronous suit on the cover, a cigarette dangling from his lip.<\/p>\n \n\tBut Monk\u2019s family doesn\u2019t think he accepted Scher\u2019s invite for the money or the marketing. It was something simpler. \u201cHe had a soft spot,\u201d T.S. says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised he agreed to play a concert for a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFOR AS LONG AS DANNY SCHER could remember, Palo Alto had been divided. On the west side of Highway 101 was Palo Alto proper, leafy home to Stanford University, the early nerds of Silicon Valley, and largely white. On the east side of the 101 was East Palo Alto, which was predominately Black. The two sides seldom mixed. As Scher recalls, \u201cPeople in Palo Alto did not go to East Palo Alto.\u201d But from a young age, Scher refused to be one of them. When the white and Black high schools swapped students for two weeks to foster community, he volunteered to be in the program. \u201cI was in the minority,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBest of all, there were more jazz fans in East Palo Alto like him. Scher had been listening to the music since his brother Les, a saxophone player, turned him on to it. Monk and Duke Ellington were his favorites. \u201cIt just spoke to me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was very accessible, but a little odd.\u201d He adds, \u201cI was a little off too.\u201d While his classmates were listening to the Dead and the Stones, Scher was a jazzy percussionist in the marching band. At 15, he hitchhiked to the Monterey Jazz Festival, where he was among the only white kids. Too young to get into jazz clubs, he\u2019d call them in advance and pretend to be a booking manager to get comped. \u201cThat way,\u201d he says, \u201cno one\u2019s ever going to ask for your ID.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOne of six boys expected to follow his father into law practice, Scher chose music instead \u2014 despite his dad\u2019s warning: \u201cThere\u2019s no money in music. Go sell shoes.\u201d After getting elected his high school\u2019s \u201ccommissioner of social activities,\u201d Scher wanted to book more than just homecoming dances and teacher talent shows, he wanted to book Monk. So the wannabe Bill Graham hatched a plan.<\/p>\n \n\tMonk was playing a residency at the Jazz Workshop, a club in San Francisco. The city was only 35 miles away. Maybe, Scher thought, Monk would be willing to come down for a Sunday-afternoon show. After tracking down the number of Monk\u2019s manager, Harry Colomby, and calling him with the outrageous offer, he got an even more surprising response: Monk was in. Scher was duly mind-blown. But now he faced a new challenge, pulling off the show.<\/p>\n \n\tUsing his student-activities funds and selling ads in the program to raise $500, Scher booked the gig for Sunday, Oct. 27, 1968. His principal signed the contract. But the question remained: Why would one of music\u2019s most acclaimed and elusive virtuosos take a high school gig from this kid at all?<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDanny Scher was his school\u2019s \u201ccommissioner of social activities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe kid promoting the Monk show, nonetheless, was having an unexpectedly hard time selling tickets. Despite Scher\u2019s booking, few people believed that the world\u2019s greatest jazz artist was really coming to town. To get the word out, Scher stuffed his newspaper-boy bag with rolled-up posters, and pedaled across Highway 101 to where he knew there were plenty of Monk fans like him: East Palo Alto.<\/p>\n \n\tIt was a busy week for postering. After the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. that spring, local leaders and activists, inspired by the Black Power and Pan-African movements of the time, moved to rename their town after Kenya\u2019s capital, Nairobi. With the vote scheduled for Nov. 5, the week after the Monk show, supporters and detractors had been plastering the area with flyers too. Tensions were high. Scher recalls a neighborhood cop seeing him taping up a poster. The cop warned him: \u201cHey, white boy, this isn\u2019t a safe place for you. You\u2019re going to get in trouble putting up posters.\u201d Scher told him, \u201cI\u2019m going to be in bigger trouble if the show doesn\u2019t do well.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSCHER\u2019S MOVE PAID OFF. With Black and white kids buying up the tickets, the show sold out. Two days before the gig, Scher called the jazz club where Monk was playing to go over details with his manager \u2014 only to hear Monk himself pick up the phone instead. There was just one thing more shocking than talking to his hero for the first time \u2014 realizing Monk didn\u2019t know about the gig at all. As he told this kid on the phone, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tScher\u2019s heart raced. He did his best to coolly fill in Monk, who\u2019d either not been told about the gig by his manager or lost track. \u201cHow am I going to get there?\u201d the piano great replied. Scher didn\u2019t have the budget for a limo, but he had something better: his older brother Les, who not only turned him on to Monk in the first place but also had a license. \u201cMy brother will pick you up!\u201d Scher assured him. Yet without having received a fully executed contract back from Monk\u2019s manager, he didn\u2019t know if Monk would really show up at all.<\/p>\n \n\tAfter his brother pulled up with Monk and his band, Scher tried to play it cool. \u201cI realized from my very first show, when I\u2019m producing a concert, it\u2019s not to be their friends,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tHe asked Monk, \u201cYou hungry?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m hungry,\u201d Monk replied.<\/p>\n \n\tScher dispatched his mom to go across the street for food. With no greenroom, Monk and the band settled in off the stage. Scher checked the school\u2019s piano. One of the custodians, a Black man in his thirties, knew how to tune it and offered to set it up. A fan himself, he just wanted one thing in return. \u201cIf I tune the piano,\u201d he said, \u201ccan I record the concert?\u201d In all of Scher\u2019s meticulous planning, he hadn\u2019t thought about recording the show. But the custodian had access to a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and knew how to operate it, too. \u201cYeah, OK,\u201d Scher told him.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019ll give you the tape when it\u2019s over,\u201d the custodian promised.<\/p>\n \n\tFrom the moment Monk and his band walked onstage, this wasn\u2019t like any gig before. T.S. Monk imagines his father would have been inspired by the mixed crowd and their placards for Nairobi. \u201cHe was always very aware of Civil Rights,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I could see why that would be important to him.\u201d Despite his own challenges, Monk didn\u2019t just show up \u2014 he unleashed an unusually incendiary and explosive 47-minute set, from the opening shot of \u201cRuby, My Dear,\u201d to the last stab of \u201cI Love You Sweetheart of All of My Dreams.\u201d Scher could only stand and watch in awe. \u201cEveryone was thrilled,\u201d he says. Even better, the young promoter felt he\u2019d done his job. \u201cThe sound was good, the lights were good,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd the piano was tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tScher displays a poster from the 1968 concert at his home in Kensington, Calif., in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPaul Chinn\/\u201dSan Francisco Chronicle\u201d\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tMonk thanked the crowd, and said his only other words of the night: \u201cWe have another show to do.\u201d Scher helped the band off the stage and make its way to his parents\u2019 car. Monk seemed to have a good time, and Scher allowed himself one moment to be a fan: asking his idol to sign the night\u2019s program. Monk wasn\u2019t fond of autographs. \u201cI don\u2019t like to carry a pen on me,\u201d he once said, \u201cbecause somebody will say \u2018Sign an autograph.\u2019\u201d But he made an exception for this bushy-haired kid. Then, just as magically as he arrived, he piled back into the car with the band, and with the bass sticking out a window, headed back to San Francisco.<\/p>\n \n\tScher stood there watching the car fade like a dream, clutching his autographed program. Though the vote to rename East Palo Alto as Nairobi was lost the following week, Monk\u2019s music had brought the town together. And Scher had the proof: the Ampex reel-to-reel tape the custodian had made of the show, handed over to Scher as promised. The 16-year-old went home and put it in a cardboard box. It would be 50 years before he heard it again.<\/p>\n \n\tDESPITE HIS FATHER\u2019S WARNINGS, Scher proved he could be happier, and more successful, promoting concerts than selling shoes. He followed up the Monk gig with another momentous feat: booking Duke Ellington to play his school. He ended up befriending the great composer and becoming his driver whenever he was in town. After studying music at Stanford, Scher hustled the biggest gig of all: working for the greatest booker in town himself, Bill Graham. Though Scher never again saw Monk, who died of a stroke in 1982 at age 64, he cherished the memories \u2014 the autographed program and a copy of the show\u2019s original poster. \u201cThis poster was always in my office,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tBut he\u2019d never heard the custodian\u2019s tape. The old reel-to-reel had been sitting in a box packed away until friends urged him to burn it onto a CD. When Scher popped it into his stereo, it was the first time he\u2019d heard it since he was that bushy-haired 16-year-old listening from backstage. The custodian\u2019s raw tape captured Monk\u2019s performance in all its wonderful imperfections: the squeak of the piano bench as he shifted in his seat, the scratchy tap of his shoes swiping the piano pedals below. \u201cIt was really good,\u201d Scher says. It had to come out.<\/p>\n \n\tThough Scher had never been in touch with Monk\u2019s family, he figured they\u2019d be as excited as him. But this time when he called, the Monk on the other end wasn\u2019t so receptive. T.S. Monk was so used to hustlers pestering him about dubious Monk recordings that he gave Scher his usual response. \u201cI said, \u2018I don\u2019t know who the fuck y\u2019all are,\u2019\u201d he recalls with a laugh, \u201cand we ain\u2019t releasing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Scher brought the CD to T.S. Monk\u2019s house to let him hear it, he watched closely as the son listened closely to the man he knew so well \u2014 as a musician, and a dad. In Monk\u2019s later years, T.S. had backed him up as a drummer, too. After so long performing with his dad, and listening to countless live recordings, T.S. was the toughest critic of his father\u2019s work. \u201cMost live performances suck,\u201d he says. But from the first note, he could tell this was no ordinary gig. \u201cMy father was feeling good,\u201d he told Scher.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHow can you tell?\u201d Scher asked.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBecause everything\u2019s up, everything\u2019s a little faster,\u201d he said, pointing out the urgency of his father\u2019s fingers, \u201cand that\u2019s when he felt good.\u201d He bobbed along as his father attacked \u201cDon\u2019t Blame Me,\u201d the 1932 pop standard. \u201cHe\u2019s playing the living shit out of this tune,\u201d T.S. told Scher. \u201cThe band is rocking!\u201d It wasn\u2019t just the performance that shook him. It was the story of the show, and how it humanized his father like nothing before. \u201cI knew the story was as big as the record,\u201d he recalls. \u201cYou got this 16-year-old white kid who picks up the phone and calls Thelonious Monk himself and says, \u2018Mr. Monk, I want to hire you.\u2019 And Thelonious Monk says, \u2018OK, kid.\u2019 I mean to me that was off the hook.\u201d He knew his father would have wanted the world to hear it. \u201cHell yeah, no doubt,\u201d T.S. says.<\/p>\n \n\tWith Impulse Records on board, Thelonious Monk: Live at Palo Alto<\/em> was slated to come out in July 2020. Scher, T.S. Monk, and the label prepared a lavish package for the vinyl release, including copies of the original program and poster. Impulse submitted it for six Grammy nominations.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tThe lost recording of the concert was finally released in 2020 and hailed as one of the best jazz albums of the year.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBut just as the advance raves were peaking two weeks before the release, they got a message from Monk\u2019s old sparring partner: his label. Sony, owners of Columbia, claimed the tape was contractually theirs. \u201cThey were saying that this recording was made during the period that Thelonious was on the contract to Columbia, and therefore they owned it,\u201d T.S. Monk says. (A Sony Music spokesperson tells me, \u201cWe don\u2019t comment on confidential contractual details.\u201d)<\/p>\n \n\tThis wasn\u2019t the first time the Monk estate had battled with Sony. In 2002, the estate conducted a forensic accounting of Monk\u2019s catalog and discovered it was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the label. A settlement was reached in 2023. But now Sony was threatening to sue if the Palo Alto concert got released. Faced with a legal battle, Impulse pulled the LP. The momentum crashed. And with no way of knowing when or if the record would get released, the hypothetical Grammy nominations went away, too.<\/p>\n\n
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