Thelonious Monk

[...] When Monk played someone else’s music, he would recast it in this sonic language. His versions were the result of painstaking labor. Each harmony was seemingly rebuilt from scratch, chosen with care and worked over, and every ornament, filigree, run and fill carefully considered. And yet the playing was also full of risk. You can’t help but notice the liveness of it, the sense of possibility and discovery, the chances taken and the...  

Robin D.G. Kelley's new book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, focuses on the career of the eccentric jazz pianist and composer. It reveals new details about Monk's life, music and mental health problems, and provides a glimpse into the New York jazz scene of the mid-twentieth century.  

Bud Powell via last.fm On Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviews Robin Kelley, the author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. In particular, they spend a fair amount of time on Trinkle Tinkle and Monk's life...  

The remastered Monk is actually two mini-sets melded into one with the first quintet consisting of the underrated trumpeter Ray Copeland = 5911, tenor saxophonist Frank Foster = 6786 and bassist Curly Russell = 3976, with the legendary Art Blakey = 5069 holding it all together on drums. These first four tracks (including a beautiful rendition of the Jerome Kern classic "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes") are upbeat and decidedly lighter...  

She was a baroness, descended from one of Europe's wealthiest families. He was the great-grandson of a slave.  

A smart new documentary from HBO, The Jazz Baroness, captures the many sides of the jazz pianist. There is a beneficent heat wave of attention returning to the subject of Thelonious Monk. It helps us through the blizzard of fluff perpetually focused...  

Thelonious Monk The Life and Times of an American Original Robin D. G. Kelley (Simon and Schuster; 588 pages; $30) In Michael Ondaatje's wonderful novel "Divisadero," the jazz of Thelonious Monk is likened to "imprisoned birdsongs." Leave it to a superb...  

Thelonious Monk via last.fm From the third page of Robin Kelley's Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original: The truth is Thelonious Monk possessed an impressive knowledge of, and appreciation for, Western classical music, not to mention...  

Cover of Brilliant Corners Bemsha Swing We See Brilliant Corners Crepuscule with Nellie I Mean You April in Paris Well, You Needn't Bright Mississippi Criss-Cross I Should Care Work All The Things You Are 'Round Midnight Star Spangled Banner Listening...  

Miles Davis made more money. Duke Ellington was more prolific. CharlieParker was more revered. But no one had a more profound impact on modern jazz than Thelonious Monk. The legendary pianist/composer with the strange hats and even stranger moniker (his given name) has finally become the subject of the kind of meticulously researched biography that [...]  

Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D. G. Kelly, was published in the fall of 2009. It arrived surrounded by buzz that, since the author had unprecedented access to the Monk family, he could finally answer those lingering questions about his "mental illness"--as in, was Thelonious schizophrenic, bipolar, obsessive-compulsive, or something else...  

Ben Williams, a 2007 graduate of Michigan State University, has won the 2009 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, perhaps the most prestigious competition in the world for young jazz musicians. The competition focuses on a different instrument each year. This year, the instrument was bass, which Williams studied with Rodney Whitaker, the director of MSU’s jazz studies program. “He is an amazing kid,” Whitaker said, “and I think...  

Nobody can deny the distinctive signature of Thelonious Monk = 9507's music. Written for simple piano, bass, and drums, it is a remarkable blending of melody, harmony, and rhythm. Now, expand his conception into a quintet setting and the challenge as Monk would say, to "lift the bandstand," presents itself to the musicians and arrangers...  

Image by louisvolant via Flickr I'm trying the new Google search feature that allows, among other treats, one button access to a lala player for tracks of the artist you are searching for. Comments so far: The lala player appears...  

Between composing, and creating a new vocabulary for the technique of playing the piano, and being a visionary guide for generations of musicians, Monk was also a man of the highest moral character.