naturalplastic wrote:
Based on behavior I think that two of the giants of post war jazz were aspies: Charlie Parker, and Thelonius Monk.
Especially Monk.
He was very spacey and eccentric.
He met a fellow bebop pianist and said "Those cats were right, you DO look like me".
Five years later his path crossed with same pianist again. The first thing out of Monk's mouth was "but you're uglier than I am."
He completed a sentence that he had started five years earlier.
Definetly aspie in behavior.
Wasn't this post already somewhere else in this thread? May have been a few years old though.
I don't know too much of him, while I'm a big fan of him, his music style is definitely different for jazz. Compared to other pianists, and bandleaders of his time, his style was really dissonant, uninterested in what jazz was in the period. You'd have to hear his music compared to others, it's hard to explain. I don't know if it's AS-ish, but it's definitely different. Uninterested in conventional approaches. More interested in banging on the piano, finding a lot of dissonances, clashing tones, trying to meld beautiful melody with going crazy, while I haven't written much myself, I could imagine myself writing music in a style similar to his if I was a Jazz pianist (bandleader) in his era.
Haven't seen his documentary, but I could believe it if he was AS. Unfortunately, we'll never know.
Yes on "mysterioso" he really bangs on the keyboard, and yet its a very pretty and delicate tune. delicate and dissonant at the same time.
One musician who apparently does NOT have AS is Beck.
Folks on another aspis website I go to are all angry at Beck because he kidded around with an interviewer saying "thats because I have aspergers..not really". Im surprised that he even knows about aspergers but some folks dont think its anything to joke about i guess.