Son Keeps Jazz Legend’s Legacy Alive : Music: Since its founding by T. S. Monk Jr., the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz fosters young talent through competitions.

Thelonious Monk has been dead 10 years; meanwhile, his son has been working diligently to extend his long-established fame. Toward that end T.S. Monk Jr. has founded the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, whose long-range aim is to foster young jazz talent.

A shadowy figure to some, the senior Monk is best remembered as a composer. His works, from ballads (“ ‘Round Midnight”) to jazz originals (“Blue Monk”), are played more now than they were during his lifetime.

That Monk was also an eccentric and influential pianist can be confirmed by his records, or better yet, by the 1989 documentary film “Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser.”

Five years ago, Monk Jr., who leads his mainstream jazz band Sunday at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, formulated the idea for an institute, to be launched in his father’s name. The institute would present annual concert-competitions focusing on youthful artists.

The first contest, held in 1987 at the Smithsonian Institution’s Bard Auditorium, was won by pianist Marcus Roberts--now an RCA/Novus recording star. Among the finalists was Joey de Francesco, an organist who today records for Columbia Records.

After three years, the competition shifted to trumpet. The winner, 17-year-old Ryan Kisor, has just released his debut album, also on Columbia. Last year, a saxophone competition was won by Joshua Redman, who has already had several recording offers.

“All these competitions were held in Washington, D.C.,” Monk pointed out, “but this year we’re moving to Lincoln Center in New York for a drum competition. It’s gratifying to go to Lincoln Center, because my father lived just a block from there. The street where he kept an apartment for his entire adult life is now officially called Thelonious Sphere Monk Circle.”

Monk wants the institute to have a permanent home as a full-scale educational jazz conservatory. Original plans to install it at Duke University in North Carolina, his father’s home state, have been scrapped.

“It’s no longer feasible to have the institute there, because the state of North Carolina is in so much fiscal trouble,” Monk said. “New York City can offer a lot of corporate sponsorship, so we may settle there. We’re also talking to New England Conservatory, where they would incorporate us into their jazz program but make us autonomous. More important than the actual location is just to get the institute up and running.”

Visiting Los Angeles recently, the 42-year-old Monk talked about growing up in the shadow of a near-mythical parent.

“My father was never told to take up music,” he said. “He went his own way and decided for himself. He gave me the same freedom. But, of course, I grew up with all these great people around the house like Max Roach and Art Blakey, so quite naturally I gravitated into music.”

Playing trumpet at first, studying piano for a while, Monk settled for drums after Roach gave him his first drumsticks and Blakey provided a full drum set. His career took a circuitous route, from teen-age gigs with Top 40 dance bands to be-bop with his father, later to R&B; and finally, recently, back to jazz.

“It was a complete trial by fire with Thelonious. He came into the living room one day and said: ‘Are you ready to play?’ ” the younger Monk recalled. “I thought he was talking about practicing, but immediately, with no rehearsal, he had me on a live TV show. That was in 1970. I was 20 years old.”

Monk worked with his father regularly for two years--”We were out here at Shelly’s Manne Hole in 1972”--then played odd jobs with him until Thelonious Monk retired in the mid-’70s. During that time the younger Monk worked with a fusion band, Natural Essence, then joined saxophonist Paul Jeffrey before forming his own group, known as T. S. Monk, which he led from 1976 to 1983.

Along the way there were a few hit records, but Monk was not musically happy.

“I spent all those years learning to play the drums, and I really wasn’t playing much drums with this R&B;, so without any transitional period I just stopped doing it and kind of floated back into the jazz situation,” he said.

He keeps busy with the group he organized last year, for which plans are expanding fast. His six-piece combo is set to play concerts from New York to Nice, France, and will have its first album, “Take 1,” out on Blue Note Records next month.

After those years sidelined in rhythm and blues, will his music be uncompromising jazz?

“You better believe it,” Monk said. “It’s gonna be straight, no chaser.”