The story of how Dr. Timothy Leary, then a Harvard Professor, gave Thelonious Monk, who was working a gig at Boston's Jazz Workshop, some "mushroom" pills. Please "Like" "Comment" and "Subscribe" the videos you like on this channel.
Monk didn't need LSD. His recordings from 1948 on show that he already saw more colors, dimensions, and perspectives that others needed chemical assistance to even get near that on-ramp to where Monk's mind was operating. Glad it backfired on Leary in such a vintage jazz fashion.
Monk was the greatest jazz pianist, can''t be touched till today. Guys like keith jarrett wanna act crazy while playing, strange body twists,etc. but Monk was naturally crazy and real, no putting on. he was beyond experimental drugs too.
There’s not a lot of recent comments. I just found out about this and was extremely surprised. Psychedelics are very important to me as they saved me from addiction and depression. Jazz does a similar thing. Does anyone wanna have a conversation about psychedelics and jazz here? Looking to “find the others.” Jazz video guy, what do you think about psychedelics?
I took my share of Acid in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The results were usually very good. But it's up to an individual to make their own responsible choices.
AP hello, thanks for the reply. I am from Portland and am actually part of a group called the Portland Psychedelic Society and we have been doing zoom meetings since the pandemic. We have all kinds of topics and speakers at meetings where peaople get together and discuss psychedelics. There’s even some art meetings. If you go on meetup.com and search it you will find it. I can not seem to post the link. Other than that, there’s Reddit communities and some people here on RU-vid but not much. Even in the music and jazz world. Although it is growing interest in psychology, philosophy, religion, creativity, etc..
Drugs have no room on the bandstand. Sure musicians take them but their musicianship nor do their opinions on life rely or have relied on drugs. It’s just hard work.
Ha, a new connection! Just saw this by accident Bret. I never knew about Leary and Monk! I met Leary once in Amsterdam late 80s, and as student of English I became obsessed with Aldous Huxley, which is how I became familiar with Leary and the tune in drop out process. ;) Great bit with Paul Gonsalves entering the room.... (Btw more anorak facts - as they say in English ;) : Monk met Piet Mondriaan in the years just before he died (PM that is). I really need to find out more, but I do know Piet loved Monk. When I read that, it made my day!
Another Jazz musician, Maynard Ferguson, was a friend of Dr. Leary, when they regularly dropped acid at the League for Spiritual Discovery headquarters in Millbrook, New York
the key word is 'was'. Leary was one of the Pied Pipers of the 60's who spread the gospel that 'drugs were good', that drugs were fun, and since that time millions of lives have been ruined and thousands of people have died because of the societal acceptance of drugs that Leary sadly spread.
spactick the war on drugs was imposed by the government. Everybody knows that there is no medical reason for the ban of psychedelics and everybody knows that abuse and criminalization is doing the harm, not the drugs. You’re trying to manipulate people here, yet nothing you say has any truth
I think most rational people would agree that the 'popularization' of drugs like LSD in the late 60's has had a profoundly damaging effect on our culture. Believe me, if it weren't for people like Leary who contributed to the brain-washing of pop culture that drugs were groovy with idiotic slogans like " turn on, tune in, drop out" 50,000 people a year wouldn't be dying from opiates. That's not a war on drugs Hankcock that's a war on humanity.
The jazz guy Leary really connected with was Maynard Ferguson. Ferguson and his wife Flo were among the first to participate in Leary’s LSD experiments. Ferguson and Leary became good friends, and Ferguson’s family lived at Leary’s Millbrook NY estate after Maynard’s career went south-before MF went to Europe and revived things. The Dutchess County DA’s office did a drug raid at that Milbrook estate while the Fergusons were living there-a raid led by G Gordon Liddy, later of the Nixon Admin. Leary and Liddy, many years later, had a series of debates on politics.
@@JazzVideoGuy Leary was the consummate hippie guru-charismatic, good-looking, articulate. A charming nut. By the way, do you know the part about one of Maynard’s daughters-I think it was Lisa-many years later suing Liddy for the trauma the raid caused? I don’t think the suit got very far…
Guitfiddlejase ,dig it,I've had kugel before,my musical runnin' buddy in Lost Angeles turned me on to it! Kugel is "Jewish lasagna" ! His grandmother made the kugel,and it was very delicious!
@@JazzVideoGuy the video is an amazing historical document and basis of comparison for the two movements and their sometimes intersection, through the figures of Leary and Monk! Leary saw himself as involved with liberation, creativity, etc...no wonder he was fascinated with jazz musicians as so many others were (Kerouac) but when you watch the video you see that there's definitely a narrow-mindedness and even a tendency towards coercion in Leary's "liberation" project! And you can't help but think that he's missing some of the depth of what Monk is about...
Typical Leary, so eager to turn people on he'd throw his own preaching about "set and setting" out the window when some celebrity came within reach. Dropping psilocybin in a hotel room after a gig (at which alcohol or other "substances" might have been consumed) is not doing "an experiment" in any other sense than "experimenting"... Leary's ego did him in, always preaching and holding forth, with cocky assurance, whatever his fancy of the day happened to be.
Looking back on that period when I was something like 15 makes me see Leary as kind of an irresponsible and naive guy although well-intentioned with his theory. They (psychedelics) don't work that way, some people have peaceful visions while other freak out and become unmanageable. They're not the anwer he proclaimed them to be.
Blew a bit of weed back in the sixties - I suppose everybody did - but stayed clear of LSD because I didn't like the idea of flashbacks which would allegedly happen when you least expected it... not sure if it is true...? Call me old fashioned but I agree with the late Truman Capote that you can only be truly creative if you are stone cold sober.
flashbacks are possible, they happen. Then again if you know it, it's a free ride haha, as the Lebowski himself has put it: "ocassional acid flashback".
This does not mean drugs are good or cool or that musicians should take drugs. What this video is actually saying is that this guy was trying to psyop the greats of jazz. Thus mk ultra and jazz fusion.
@@JazzVideoGuy miles Davis cia - Dizzy Gillespie. It was in his campaign for presidency. He mentions Phillis Diller too. Dizzy was really on top of this shit back then but the more I read and listen to interviews of other artists new and old the more I realize how much bebop, stride, and swing are either swept under the rug or some how connected to classical music, which is just not true.
@@JazzVideoGuy if you meant the psychologist, he wasn’t cia but he had become friends with an FBI agent who had done water gate and they had a debate tour I suppose, kind of like the debate bro thing happening on RU-vid a couple years back. But this was basically the signaling of us livening in if not a neoliberal America than a libertarian/ anarchist America.
I read in Monk's biography that Leary dosed Monk unbeknownst to him. That story has always made me sick to my stomach. Monks early recordings are, imo, his best, most swinging stuff. I would never attempt to change anything about the way the man thinks. Leary is far from a hero to me, more a culturally insensitive dumbass.
Leary would never have done that, if he wanted you to take it he would bother you for weeks until you did, but he would never use it on someone like that. what? give it to the genius and see if they get smarter? thats youngster mentality and most people graduate from that kind of ridiculous stuff once they actually take acid themselves.
I agree. Monk was taking Thorazine @ this time to curb his illness or was the illness exacerbated by the psilocybin? He was admitted to Bellevue Hospital around this time.
Secretly dosing someone doesn’t really fit into Leary’s mo. But other people were spiking people or just not warning them out of negligence or as a joke. Daniel Johnson’s schizophrenia was essentially activated by an LSD spiked drink. If you have a brain chemical imbalance you should stay away from psychedelics, I have seen it’s effects on such people personally. Buy there have been positive results for LSD therapy for neurotics.
Leary was an asshole but I'm at least thankful that psychedelics do exist, I think under the right circumstances they can do a lot of good, but only in a controlled setting
