“ENCOUNTER,”

Toronto Telegram, November 12, 1966

Beginning: a continuing Showcase series in which entertainment personalities of clashing backgrounds are brought face to face (and phrase to phrase) for a discussion of just about anything that comes to mind. This week: jazz meets opera as Thelonious Monk and Delores Wilson talk over coffee. . .

INTERVIEWER. Have your paths ever crossed before?

BOTH: No.

MONK: Except, you know, probably on radio or records, or something.

INT: Have you ever been to the Met at all?

MONK: No, I haven't had the pleasure, although I want to go, sometime. Never had the time with my kind of work you know.

INT.: Do you have much interest in opera?

MONK: Well, I like music and I like plays and that is what opera is.

INT.: And, Miss Wilson, how do you feel about jazz?

WILSON: Well, the way Mr. Monk plays it, I like it, I think it's marvelous. I was asking him while we were coming down in the taxicab if when he started to play he always . . . . he had this idea in mind, this unique style. or if this was just an evolvement of what happened while he was playing, and just sort of came out. Or if he started with this idea, developing this style.

INT.: You sort of broke in on the jazz scene, didn't you Mr. Monk? How long ago was it?

MONK: In the early 40’s . . . the so-called bebop . . . the progress that jazz made, I am one of the fellows that they say started it. They say Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and myself.

INT.: (To Miss Wilson) Have you ever sung any jazz songs at all?

WiLSON: Not jazz, though I think it would be fun to try it. The furthest I've gone into something like that would be blues and ballads.

INT.: How close is opera to jazz?

WILSON: Oh, miles apart, because I think in jazz you can do what you feel, you can change. You don't dare change what Verdi wrote or Giuseppe wrote without committing a major crime, and the only time you're given any leeway is like at the end of a mad scene where you do a cadenza that is written especially for your vocal talents. But you are just given that little piece within that opera where you can do it, and then of course that is always curtailed or added to by the conductor. It's really not your form. In the olden days, before Toscanini came onto the scene, the opera singers were able to do a lot of things because they were mainly the stars.

Then all of a sudden, Toscanini came and it was the conductor who was the man in charge. And Toscanini came in and said, "This has got to stop, you just can't interpolate what you want, you've got to do what the composer wrote and what he had in mind,” so that all stopped, even, you know, how long you can hold a high note, or anything that would be exaggerated and then all the other conductors followed suit.

INT.: Then, in a way, today's jazz has sort of taken the place of yesterday's opera

WILSON: Yes, it seems that that was just what I was trying to say.

MONK: But I wouldn't quite say that. They're both all alone in their field, although they're related to each other. But you see, take musicals that's today's opera in a sense.

INT.: How do you see your form of expression What Is it?

MONK: Making it sound as best you can. And to improve on it as much as you can.

INT.: Is it sound or the experience?

MONK: Well, it's both. It's mostly the sound, I mean . . . you know music is sound, what happens to sound.

INT.: But Is then another reason beyond the sound? Is the sound not just a means to an end?

MONK: Well I enjoy doing it. That's all I wanted to do anyway. I guess, you know, if I didn't make it with the piano, I guess I would've been the biggest bum . . . .

WILSON: One of my bones of contention about some of the modern composers today, be it symphony form or for opera, is they are going so far out, and they are trying so far for the sound in opera, that they have lost the basic expression of what it should be, a form of soul expression. If I have to go and sit and listen to a symphony that is clanging you know, cling, clang, you know, and horns, I can just open my window and listen to the traffic that's going on downstairs. There's no, music in it, there's no expression in its soul, and I don't want to sit and listen and say, "Listen to that scale, listen to the treatment he gives.

I just want to go and be moved by the beauty of it, I want to feel it. Mr. Monk does that beautifully with his music. There is soul, there is expression, but some of our modern composers now are just trying for just plain sound.

MONK: I agree with you wholeheartedly because in jazz they're doing the same things, what they call avant garde, they do anything, make any kind of noise. A lot of young musicians are doing that.

WILSON: And some of the words that are coming out, you know, these stupid words, ridiculous words. Of course, they're indicative of our youngsters of today, but I don't have to live with it, do I? Or necessarily approve of it? The beauty, the love, is all gone, and now you listen to the lyrics, and sometimes I’m appalled at what I hear, at some what they call . . . what is it called? Rock and Roll? What do they call it?

MONK: I wouldn't call that advanced, rock and roll is . . . digressed. . . .

INT: Is there any communication at all In this now discotheque type of music?

MONK: I really don't know, because I don't drown In it myself...

INT: Do you get anything out of it?

WILSON: I get a headache.

MONK: Well, my wife tells me it gives her a stomachache. It don't do that to me, I can listen to it, but as she explained it, it don't have that tone and it don't tell a story.

INT.: What do you do for relaxation ‑ apart from playing the piano?

MONK: Laying down, resting.

INT: Have you any hobbies, do you play any games?

MONK: I can shoot pool, and I can play ping‑pong. I'm pretty good at those games.

In fact, I was a champ when I was a kid, you know, in community centres ... I haven't played ping‑pong in a long while, but I shot pool a few weeks, months; back.., in Milwaukee.

WILSON: Are you on the road a lot?

MONK: Not too much. I spend a lot of time in New York. I have to. We have two kids, my wife and myself. A boy, 16 and a girl, 13.

WILSON: Do they play?

MONK: Yeah. They like music. My daughter she wants to be a star, a singer. She would dig doing like you. My son, he likes drums.

WILSON: Is your daughter taking voice, then?

MONK: No, but she sings every song, every rock 'n roll song that comes out. Plus, she digs other types of music, too. She's not just a rock 'n' roll fan.

INT: Are you on the road much Miss Wilson?

WILSON: Yes. When I was at the Met, I toured with them, and then there were concerts and engagements, traveling to Europe South America.

And now that I've accepted my first national company, it seems that about all I have time to do is pack, get into a hotel, unpack, settle down, do a show, pack again, and go off again to the next town.

My contract goes to the end of May. They expect Fiddler to run about two years in Chicago, and of course it is sold out here. And I want to tell your readers that we are not treating them with contempt as one critic has suggested. This company was chosen with love and with care. If any mistakes were made in the New York company they were completely rectified in the national company. We have marvellous talent ... like Luther Adler's, for instance. If a critic does his job well, it's wonderful. We have good critics, and they play a very important part In the theatre ... if they are fair . . . If they are fair. But there are others who seem to get a vicious thrill from slashing and annihilating. . . .

MONK: I kind of agree with you. They change a lot of things, but I guess that's journalism. They have a lot of tricks, and they want to entertain the people. If something doesn't sound exciting enough for their public, they make it exciting.

INT: Do you think New York is still the centre of jazz?

MONK: Yes. Seems musicians come to New York and they reach a certain maturity, because there’s an awful lot of good musicians in New York.

WILSON: New York is the centre of North American culture, certainly. Perhaps the centre of world culture now. Milano would still be the centre of opera, London is doing exciting things in theatre ... but for well‑rounded culture, I would say New York. . . .

Toronto? I watched some of your television programs and I think they're very daring. You're doing things we aren't doing in our television. Even oil your radio you still have readings. Your Shakespeare festival is marvellous. It's wonderful that a town this size is supporting all the activity that's going on. And you're growing. I think I'd compare Toronto with Los Angeles. The fact that you can have a man like Thelonious Monk here for two weeks and appreciate him shows the city is growing and is ready.

MONK: It's been packed all week.

WILSON: Fiddler on the Roof was sold out before we came. It's marvellous. It's a growing town. It's exciting.

MONK: And your city hall. . . .

WILSON: Oh, isn't that magnificent?

MONK: Beautiful. Beautiful.

WILSON: Oh, that is exciting. I saw it last night when we finished the show. They had the first‑night party and someone said at about 1:15, 'Let's go, I want to show you something.' We got into a taxi cab. And when they showed me the building, I said. 'Marvellous, what is it?' They said it's the city hall. And the Henry Moore statue, you know what I want to do, I want to feel It, I think a lot of the pleasure of this is the texture put into that piece of sculpting.

MONK: Oh yes, the sculpture by Moore? It's crazy. I dig it.

WILSON: It doesn't look like an archer to me, but it's beautiful.

MONK: It's modern. That's the most modern city hall I've seen. There's nothing to compare with it in the U.S. and no place else. It's very hip. If everybody is as hip as the city hall, this is a very modern place.