Music for a Tuesday Night - Thelonious Monk
From Mark Steyn:
"At which point enter Thelonious Monk - or, at any rate, his composition. According to whose version you go with, Monk wrote the music for "Round Midnight" either under the title "Grand Finale" as a teen genius in the mid-Thirties or under the title "Round About Midnight" as a jobbing pianist in New York in the early Forties. But at some point along the way Cootie Williams, a trumpeter for Duke Ellington who'd quit to lead his own band, heard the tune and, as Monk told it, in 1944 he offered the pianist a $300 advance for the theme. In return, the Williams band would record it and Cootie would publish it and give himself a share of the writing credits. Very foolishly, Monk took the deal. And to make matters worse, according to his son, Cootie got all the dough. 'In those days,' writes his biographer Leslie Gourse, 'the record companies simply registered the performer as the composer and shared in the revenues or royalties from the songs.'"
"At which point enter Thelonious Monk - or, at any rate, his composition. According to whose version you go with, Monk wrote the music for "Round Midnight" either under the title "Grand Finale" as a teen genius in the mid-Thirties or under the title "Round About Midnight" as a jobbing pianist in New York in the early Forties. But at some point along the way Cootie Williams, a trumpeter for Duke Ellington who'd quit to lead his own band, heard the tune and, as Monk told it, in 1944 he offered the pianist a $300 advance for the theme. In return, the Williams band would record it and Cootie would publish it and give himself a share of the writing credits. Very foolishly, Monk took the deal. And to make matters worse, according to his son, Cootie got all the dough. 'In those days,' writes his biographer Leslie Gourse, 'the record companies simply registered the performer as the composer and shared in the revenues or royalties from the songs.'"
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