Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988)

Interesting facts

• Awards: 1 · Nominations: 0. Including: National Film Registry

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser is a 1988 American documentary film about the life of bebop pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. Directed by Charlotte Zwerin, it features live performances by Monk and his group, and posthumous interviews with friends and family. The film was created when a large amount of archived footage of Monk was found in the 1980s.

Production

After meeting on the streets of New York, director and cinematographer Christian Blackwood mentioned to film producer Bruce Ricker that he and his brother had done some work on jazz, referring to a one-hour film special on Thelonious Monk that only aired once in Germany. After Ricker saw the footage, calling them "the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz", he suggested that they use the footage as the focus of a new documentary.

While they originally planned to enlist Monk for the film, he was not well enough to approach and his failing health led to his eventual death of a stroke on February 17, 1982. Blackwood filmed the funeral while Zwerin and Ricker planned to make a deal with the Monk estate.

After the delay Zwerin and Ricker struggled to fund the project and only raised enough money for a one-hour television program with limited post-TV distribution potential. Ricker eventually came into contact with Clint Eastwood and after finding out his appreciation of jazz and the bebop genre asked if he was interested in helping with production of the film.

Old footage from different network companies was used, along with the footage from the Blackwood brothers' previous work. New footage was also shot, featuring interviews with his son, Thelonious Monk III, tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, and other family and friends of Monk.

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