To the general public, monks are strange, almost like hermits, men with specialties not commonly found among the ordinary, thus motivating them to live away from the public by themselves, perhaps the truest form of them to be found in Asia.
A monk being an African American, is outside of that known cosmos. What is even more unbelievable, this monk is from Rocky Mount North Carolina, the bedrock, or dumping ground of slaves that crossed the Atlantic to the advertised New World (North and South America).
Monk (painting by Vel Verrept)
He was born in 1917, took to the piano, and became an “improvisational genius” in jazz music. ROUND MIDNIGHT is in the Grammy Hall of Fame. His style of audibles and stomping while playing, create a picture of a Buddhist monk communicating with a set of spiritual beings in the outward stratosphere.
When I heard of ALFRED YUN, a Korean pianist paying homage to MONK, I made the trip to BROOKVILLE Maryland. St. Luke’s Episcopalian Church had no seats, if you were not on the list. Here’s why:
