Correspondence: Broadbent And Monk

Following the Ornette Coleman birthday posting three items down, Alan Broadbent sent the following:

Now, this one's absolutely true, I was there and it's never made the books.
Monk's quartet came to NZ on his "64 world tour and I and my friend Frank Gibson had good seats at Auckland's beloved Town Hall to see him. After the concert I was elected to drive Larry Gales in my '53 Ford Prefect to the Musician's Union where we held a little party for the band. Well, would you believe it, there was Thelonious all by himself standing in a corner, keeping to himself. Mostly, I think, because everyone must have been afraid to approach him. I remember him wearing a turban and occasionally doing a little twirl, which must have been somewhat intimidating to everyone, not the least me. Frank started nudging me. "Go on, Alan, go ask him something."

Being a lad of 17 and discovering all kinds of new things to listen to in jazz, even in 1964 New Zealand, I had been listening to Ornette and Charlie, trying to comprehend the new "free form" jazz. I had read the term in Down Beat, I believe.

Well, I made my way through the crowd toward his little corner of the world and looked up at what seemed to me a giant of a man in more ways than one. After gingerly introducing myself, I somehow managed to tell him I was listening to Ornette and asked him if he had an opinion about this new "free form" music. Thereupon he looked down at me and said in a low, quiet voice....

"Well.... first you said FREE..... then you said FORM."
Whereupon I thanked him and melded back into the crowd.

On this CD, Broadbent plays Monk's "'Round Midnight." I hoped to find video of him performing a Monk piece but had no luck. Instead, here he is with Charlie Haden's Quartet West in a 1999 concert in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Haden, bass; Broadbent, piano; Ernie Watts, tenor saxophone; Larance Marable, drums. Bizarrely, the YouTube clip identifies the tune as "The Long Goodbye." Maybe they'd had too many Heinekens. The piece is, in fact, Charlie Parker's "Dexterity."


http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/2010/03/correspondence_broadbent_and_m.html