John Beasley’s MONK’estra to Perform at Purdue University on Jan. 19 for Purdue Jazz Festival

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – John Beasley’s MONK’estra comes to Purdue’s Loeb Playhouse in Stewart Center on Jan. 19 at 8 p.m. This performance is presented by Purdue Convocations with support from the Davis Family Endowment, Student Concert Committee and the Student Fee Advisory Board. 

John Beasley, of MONK’estra, and Don Seybold, host of WBAA’s “Inside Jazz,” will lead a discussion about the evening’s performance at 7 p.m. in Stewart Center, Room 310. 

Thelonious Monk is a monolithic monument to modern jazz, keeping guard over it for eternity. Honed at Harlem’s Minton Playhouse in the 1940s, Monk’s angular chords, spacious riffs, and explosive technique shifted cultural tastes from big band swing toward bebop’s mesmerizing dissonance and breakneck improvisation. 

For the 2018 Purdue Jazz Festival, it is an honor to celebrate Monk’s centennial birth and his undying influence on the form by welcoming John Beasley’s MONK’estra. This ensemble brings jazz full circle, translating Monk’s work into the big band format with fresh, buoyant arrangements. Led by Beasley on piano, the MONK’estra evokes its namesake’s singular spirit: the offbeat melodies and humor, strange beauty, and unbounded swing, now infused with New Orleans spirit, hip-hop, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and other atmospheric colors. Their sound reflects the far-ranging travels of Beasley, a Grammy and Emmy Award-nominated pianist, composer, and arranger who has shared stages with Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Dianne Reeves, Herbie Hancock, Chaka Khan, and James Brown. He is also the music director for the Thelonious Monk Institute, where he oversees UNESCO’s International Jazz Day global concerts and annual competition galas. In 2016, Mack Avenue Records released the MONK’estra’s debut album, MONK’estra, Volume 1.

By retaining Monk’s nimble, sometimes jarring syncopation and adding big band playfulness and exuberance, Beasley’s MONK’estra casts appreciative upward glances at the man who made it possible while making its own mark on his material. 

Tickets are $34 for adults and $24 for children 18 years and younger, Purdue students and Ivy Tech Lafayette students. Tickets are available at the Stewart Center box office at 765-494-3933 or 800-914-SHOW. Group tickets are also available to groups of 10 more. Call 765-496-1977 for more details or visit https://purdue.edu/convocations/group-sales/.

Initiated in 1902, Purdue Convocations was one of the first professional performing arts presenters in the United States. Each year, Convocations offers the region 30-40 performances of widely varying genres: Broadway-style shows, theater, dance, children's theater, world music, jazz, and chamber music, along with rock, pop, country and comedy attractions. With a vision for connecting artists and audiences in artistic dialogue and for drawing in academic discourse, Purdue Convocations aims to promote frequent exposure to and familiarity with human cultural expression in a multitude of forms and media. 

Source: Abby Eddy, Purdue Convocations director of marketing, (765)494-9712, aeeddy@purdue.edu 

Note to Journalists: Publication-quality photos are available at http://www.convocations.org/press