Denver musicians and Gov. John Hickenlooper remember Joe Bonner, the internationally known jazz pianist who died at the age of 66 on Nov. 20. Photo courtesy of Travis Broxton.
Piano legend , who worked with giants from the jazz world on over 40 albums, passed away in Denver on Nov. 20. The coroner reported he died in his sleep from heart disease. He was 66.
Bonner was an internationally renowned pianist who was born in the same town of Rocky Mount, N.C., as Thelonious Monk. He played with jazz masters like Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Pharoah Sanders, Billy Harper, Harold Vick and Max Roach. He had a distinguished roster of albums as a leader, as well. And though the above gives context to his accomplishments, it doesn’t tell all of Bonner’s story.
Denver was Bonner’s adopted home on and off for decades after he arrived in 1976. I didn’t know Joe well, but, starting in the early ‘90s, I saw him play often at clubs and after-hours jam sessions, and occasionally ran into him at Capitol Hill bars. No one else matched his symphonic style of playing. Beyond his technique, Joe was a complex composer and relentless in pursuit of his aesthetic.
Stories traveled regularly about town detailing Bonner’s exploits. He was bohemian and eccentric, and he didn’t seem to care what people thought. And Bonner also had his demons.
“I didn’t have to fit into any category,” he said in the liner notes to his masterful album, “Impressions of Copenhagen.” But, he didn’t always feel that free.
Joe often confided to close friend and musical collaborator Tom Tilton that he drank to quiet voices in his head.
“That was how Joe dealt with them,” Tilton said. “That was how he felt he felt he could control them.”
Yet, what people seem to remember most is the joy that music gave Bonner and those who heard him play it. With Tilton’s considerable assistance, we solicited people who knew Bonner to email their impressions of him. It seemed right that the many people whose lives he touched be part of telling his story. Some of what turned into an outpouring of response follows:
• Salim Washington, saxophonist
“I had the privilege of Mr. Bonner’s assistance on my first recording as a leader. In many ways, he saved me from my own ignorance, and from the first encounter with Joe and throughout, he always managed to enlighten, entertain and excite musically. I remember talking about him with my mentor, Pharoah Sanders. Pharoah told me that Joe was his favorite pianist, and also, that what he liked about Joe was that he made him sound intelligent. I thought that a marvelous way of phrasing it.
“Joe was one of those genius musicians who (was) somewhat easily socially misunderstood. His prodigious appetite for alcohol could be amusing if it were not ultimately so deadly, no doubt contributing mightily to our current mourning. When I met him, he was outrageous. I had gone to Denver in part to meet with him, and our initial meeting was almost humorous. He hit on my lady in my presence, and punctuated his significations by cleaning his teeth… with a pocketknife. This was not the first or second time that I had experienced this, and so I passed that test with ease. Seeing that I was not so easily rattled, (he) began to explain himself in the way he could sometimes in moments of absolute lucidity. He exclaimed something like, “Yo, man, you can see that I am crazy. But I am about this music, and not no B.S. Once you understand that, it’s all good.” That was a new one for me. I am grateful for the music he left, and also for the commitment to himself that he showed, constrained as he was by a certain level of dysfunction. We are all too familiar with this, I am afraid. But given its prevalence, we must also understand it as a social phenomenon, as much as personal dysfunction. Heck, in the final analysis, it really is only a footnote in a tome of good music. I mention it in this context because, once again, one of our geniuses has left us all too soon, and with our embarrassing under-appreciation. Mad love, long live Mr. Joe Bonner.”
• Tom Tilton, drummer/producer
“When Joe was spending summers in Harlem in his late teens, he went to The Village Vanguard to see Thelonious Monk, who was from the same town in North Carolina as Joe. It was cold out and Joe was wearing this wool-plaid sportcoat that his mother had sent to him. He was invited backstage to say hello to Monk. And Monk was wearing the same, wool-plaid sportcoat as Joe.
‘Where did you get that coat?’ Joe asked.
‘My mother sent it to me,’ Monk said.”
• Gov. John Hickenlooper
“We hired Joe to play piano at The Wynkoop. He really became part of the Wynkoop family. He would say the most outrageous things and then give you this beatific, almost saint-like smile. One Thanksgiving morning, I saw him sitting on a bench in Park Hill. He didn’t have anywhere to go, so I told him in a couple hours we’d be having dinner at the Governor’s mansion, did he want to come.
Joe said, ‘I’d love to go, but I don’t have a car.’
I said I’d pick him up, and he came by for Thanksgiving and played piano, too. He was, without question, the most talented piano player I’ve ever heard. I’d give him a CD and he’d come back the next day and play the whole thing. He had perfect pitch and perfect retention. He used to sing, too, he had a real raspy voice, kind of like Bob Dylan. But he’d sing “Blueberry Hill” and people loved it. He could have made some real money and been a pop star if he played that barrelhouse and boogie woogie type of music, but he said that was boring to him, he wanted to play these complex melodies and arrangements.
There’s only a handful of people for whom I’d call a writer working on a memorial piece, just to let them know that I loved that person. I want people to know that I loved Joe Bonner.”
• Barbara Paris, singer
“I had the pleasure of working with Joe from 1990 to 2012. I recorded six months after I met him. I asked him if he thought I was ready to record. He said, ‘Yes, you’ll never be the same as you are today.’ I am not at all the same now as the day I met Joe. He took me under his wing. I had the honor of hearing him play all those years, blessed. He could take my bad note and make it a warm chord. He just played me into place. His tags were never longer than my breath. When met Joe I had gone to hear (him) at Coyotes in Denver. He was playing solo piano at lunch. I had just returned from Paris and we had a conversation about that. My name was Barbara Perea the night I first sang with Joe. He introduced me as Barbara Paris. The drummer said, ‘Barbara Perea.’ Joe repeated, ‘Barbara Paris.’ ”
• Mitchell Long, jazz guitarist
“One image (that) stands out in my memory was the first time I saw him at The Champa Bar. In the midst of what seemed like endless free improvisation and pushing of boundaries, he finally just got up from the piano and started to shout wild guttural screaming at the music, the muse, the musicians. It was as if he couldn’t go any further on the piano so he just stood there in a kind of rapture screaming and cheering wildly at the muse… It was beautiful, I remember feeling connected and understood it. We are lucky to have artists who take chances and risks, artists who really reach as far as possible with no fear whatsoever. Joe suffered a lot but gave so much. Rest in peace, dearest master of music, of soaring beauty, of the piano. I miss you and am honored to have known you a little bit.”
• Rodney Franks, KUVO
“Many who met (Joe) were put off by his disheveled physical appearance and his sometimes unrefined behavior, but once he sat down at the piano, one could not help but to see (religious or not) that god had her hand on his shoulder as he he played. To steal a line from Nikki Giovanni, “We judge a man by his Intent/Not alone his shortcomings.” Many of us heard his “intent” through his piano and I, for one, am a richer person for that. I will stave off the ensuing poverty sure to come with his death.”
• Jeanne Addison, friend/producer/performer
“Joe was a charmer. He could come across as a bit of a misogynist at first, but I know of no other composer who wrote for Crista McAuliffe and Benazir Bhutto. He was generous to the women he played with – singers, musicians, the occasional poet. Joe loved women, women of all ages, races, sizes and temperaments. Quite a few loved him back.”
• Prasanna Bishop, saxophonist
“I was fortunate to have played and recorded extensively with this luminary maestro. We had just released our first CD and iTunes download, ‘Fire Dance,’ five weeks before his passing. He was excited about the recording session we assembled, with Jimmi (Hopps) EsSpirit (from Freddie Hubbard, Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra and a long association with Joe), Nivedano Alyrio Lima Cova (from Weather Report), Kim Stone (from Spyro Gyra), Charles Ayash and myself. He was feeling gratified about how he was being presented to the public, and feeling the best he had about himself in many years.
“We seemed to have a musical connection that went beyond listening and responding, or what experience would guide us to do. It felt as if we knew the changes that were about to happen and would anticipate each other. We shared our experience with meditation and silence, and how we let that inform and inspire our playing. He met John Coltrane one month before Coltrane’s death, a meeting that turned out to be a ‘passing of the flame’ for Joseph. He knew that the beauty of what was being created was coming from a place beyond his ego, beyond the normal state we all mostly resort to. He understood the responsibility of an artist to never compromise where the art is concerned. And he lived up to that responsibility. He was a dear, dear friend and I miss him deeply.”
• Chris Guillot, owner, Cherry Sound Records
“Joe was a good friend of mine and signed to Cherry Sound Records. He was a brilliant, vibrant musician, and great friend. He left a shining legacy of music for us to live with into the future. At Cherry Sound, we had the great honor and privilege of helping to make his last record entitled, “Current Events,” a collection of all original compositions, performed solo by Joe on the piano. We were planning on hosting a CD release party on Dec. 19 at The Living Room. We will still be carrying through with this event, playing music from Current Events, and showing documentary footage from the making of the album. Itap an opportunity for us to celebrate this great man.”
• Erik Troe, KUVO
“Our drummer friend Tom brought Joe along (to the jam session at Meadowlark) and the old tiger sat down to play. Word caught like wildfire among the patio dwellers upstairs that Bonner was here, he was going to play. All the young players and I put out our cigarettes and ran in a body down the steps. I hope Joe knew that part. The promotional photo Joe signed for me at Meadowlark – it’s hilarious that (he) signed the picture ‘Thanks for the music!’ That’s what WE were supposed to say to him. My autographed LP cover from ‘Copenhagen’ is equally funny and modest. It reads: ‘Hello Erik. Thanks for listening to jazz music! Joe.’ I’ll return the greeting now: Goodbye Joe. Thanks for making jazz music!”
• A.J. Salas, pianist/producer/beatmaker
“When you watched that guy play, what people forgot was that almost everyone in music agrees piano is the hardest instrument to play. Joe had the ability to create five voicings in his right hand, and he could decide, say, if and when he wanted that fourth voice, that right ring finger, to be more prominent. Not too many people can do that. I had mad respect for Joe Bonner. He trumped us all. He dies among the greats, and with the respect of greats. I don’t know what you thought, but I thought Joe would live forever.”
The tortured artist stereotype is one of the last stereotypes we’re willing to let go. I think the reason for this isn’t so much that some studies show a connection between madness and creative genius. I think itap more because pointing at someone on a ledge give us the perfect excuse for our lack being in the world creatively, and for our lack of risk-taking in our creative attempts.
Sometimes, I think Joe was so out there in order to keep people from getting in. That there was a treasured part of himself he was afraid would vanish into thin air if he unwrapped it for others to see. But what beauty he gave us.
If Joe Bonner was at his best at the piano, maybe it was because he could express his own voice there. And all the other voices stopped to listen.
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Denver-based writer Sam DeLeo is a published poet, has seen two of his plays produced and recently completed his novel, “As We Used to Sing.” His selected work can be read at samdeleo.com.
