A wealth of never-before-seen footage offers a gripping and intimate portrait of Thelonious Monk in Paris, 1969. The legendary pianist and composer arrives for a TV interview before his evening concert, where he is met with racist, colonialist acts both large and small. Edited together by acclaimed Senegalese-French filmmaker Alain Gomis from the show’s rushes, a picture emerges of Monk’s battle to reject the racist stereotypes his interviewer projects onto him. Ending with Monk’s rhapsodic performance that night in 1969, REWIND AND PLAY (2022) captures the struggle—and triumph—of one of the geniuses of 20th century music.

GME has recently concluded deals for the inclusion of iconic jazz photographs by Hugh Bell of Thelonious Monk (from 1957) and other jazz greats for the new edition of 'ReFraming: REFLECTIONS IN BLACK,' Deborah Willis’s updating of her 2000 groundbreaking pictorial collection of African American life, which, in addition to work by Hugh Bell, includes photos by James VanDerZee, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems, among dozens of others.

Hugh Bell was a renowned art and commercial photographer, who worked in New York City over the course of his entire professional career. In 2014 GME was engaged on an exclusive basis by the Bell Estate to manage the collection of Hugh Bell’s photographs and to further the artist’s legacy. GME is committed to resurrecting the career of this overlooked photographer, through licensing of his photographs, republishing his out-of-print books, mounting curated exhibitions, and in identifying a long-term repository for this significant collection of photographic works.

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Never-Before-Seen Footage Offers Intimate Portrait of Thelonious Monk in Paris Showing at BAM Mar 10-16