Ugly Beauty is a composition by Thelonious Monk.
Received notions, prejudices and phobias can prevent people from seeing or hearing clearly.
Less so posthumously, but very much so during his lifetime, many just did not “get” Monk’s music – for reasons not hugely dissimilar to those which can blind people to an arachnid’s or a reptile’s beauty.
(photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken 12.24 pm on 28 October 2019 in Tangjiahe Nature Reserve, Sichuan, China)
I have an irrational fear of spiders, and in my case, “size matters”.
I am hardly at all bothered when I come across a redback, but seriously spooked by an unanticipated encounter with a huntsman.
This is notwithstanding the fact that the former could actually harm/hurt me, whereas the latter poses no threat.
Still, I mostly manage not to kill spiders, and I do recognise that many are beautiful, including this post’s large, exquisitely coloured individual.
Had I unwittingly stumbled into that spider’s web, and suddenly found my eyes and the web-builder’s eyes facing each other, mere millimetres apart – or, worse still, had I suddenly felt eight large legs making their way across my bewebbed face – I would have instantly become a human tornado, arms aflail.
However, I clearly saw this spider from a distance, so my heart rate remained normal, and I was happy to approach it, and to appreciate it, close up.
For some people, last century, their first encounter with Thelonious Monk’s music was akin to that “unwitting stumble” into a web – unforeseen, startling, and therefore “horrible”.
It now seems ludicrous that anyone ever could have suspected that Monk (1917-1982) was “a fraud”, or believed that he “couldn’t really play the piano”, or that he composed only “ugly” music.
Monk’s originality/singularity was, of course, “the problem”.
It is also the reason that he is now generally regarded as a genius, and that more than a few of his compositions have become “standards”.
Ugly Beauty is the only piece which Monk composed as a waltz.
It debuted on his 1968 album Underground.
At the time, that LP’s famous/infamous cover art very probably distracted listeners’ and critics’ attention from its music.
Click here for the cover, and an amusing account of its photo session.
Arguably, the actual music was poorly served by the edits and sonic manipulations imposed upon it by producer Teo Macero.
The edits were perhaps “necessary”, because a “high fidelity” vinyl LP could not accommodate much more than 20 minutes per side.
The LP’s compressed, tinny sound is less easy to forgive.
Happily, the unedited original master tapes were not destroyed, and were in good condition when rediscovered.
Thus, the 2003 “special edition” CD version of Underground, with its pieces now intact – their structure no longer wrecked by edits, and the sound balance restored to a “natural” state.
You can read a perceptive review here; it very effectively demolishes some common misconceptions about Monk.
Its key observation:
He composed precisely zero when suffering from those bouts of manic depression he endured about 3 times a year…His music would have sounded exactly as it sounds to us today with or without his debilitating mental illness
Here, intact, is Ugly Beauty, played in a single take by Monk, bassist Larry Gales, drummer Ben Riley and saxophonist Charlie Rouse:
I think both your fear of spiders and love of Monk are entirely rational!