ANDREAS STERZING
Thelonious Monk’s shadow still looms large in the music world some 35 years after his death. It wasn’t until guitarist Elliott Sharp studied at Bard College in the early ’70s that he really got to know the pianist/composer’s work, exploring it at the behest of his teacher, trombonist Roswell Rudd. And once he did, he was hooked.
“I’ve always kept an ear toward Monk, no matter what else I’ve been doing,” Sharp says, speaking from his studio in Manhattan. “He had such a reserved but very sardonic way of playing. The melodies were very simple and catchy in a childlike way. And the way he would user minor sevens for this percussive attack that would bend notes in a way that it no longer sounded like a piano.”