Misterioso – A Journey into the Silence of Thelonious Monk
A
man with perhaps the best name in the history of music, the life of Thelonious
Sphere Monk seems well suited to dramatisation. Monk is widely acknowledged to
be one of the twentieth century’s most original musical innovators and his
unique compositional and piano performance style have had an enormous influence
on contemporary music. Always enigmatic, he spent the last seven years of his
life in almost complete silence, locked away from the world under the care of
his close friend Baroness Pannonica Rothschild, better known as the ‘Jazz
Baroness’.
In
Misterioso, writer Stefano Benni and adaptor/director
Filomena Campus have sought to shed some light on this unusual relationship
and to explore the paradoxical silence that defined this great musician’s last
years.
Central
to this exploration is a quartet of musicians drawn from the top ranks of
London’s jazz and free improv scene. With a changing roster of guests each
night, the music is impeccably performed yet still retains the freshness and
angular approach that characterised Monk’s compositions. Campus also lends her
voice to the proceedings, though she lacks the nuances of phrasing of her more
experienced musical colleagues and adding lyrics to Monk’s tunes is of
questionable merit.
The
music forms a kind of sonic tapestry around which the narrative, such as it is,
is woven. Tamsin Shasha captures some of the charm and sparkle of the Jazz
Baroness but her interaction with the on-stage musicians is at best stilted.
Worse still is a very ill-conceived segment of audience participation where
Shasha and Campus bring members of the audience on stage to dance. Bebop jazz
of the kind pioneered by Monk was an inherently intellectualised form that
consciously moved away from the more dance-oriented swing music that preceded
it, and this dance segment fundamentally undermines the political undertones
that writer Stefano Benni brings out in his poetic narrative.
If
Misterioso has some fine moments, overall it feels like a
missed opportunity. Billie Holiday briefly appears as a character, but
inexplicably doesn’t sing a note, the projections by digital artists SDNA are
somewhat underwhelming, the physical theatre elements feel tacked-on (if well
performed) and the relationship between Monk and the Jazz Baroness is never
explored in enough detail to form any sort of engaging narrative. The whole
project is also pervaded by smoky jazz club clichés which, in a piece about a
great innovator like Monk, feel misjudged.
– Steve Pretty
