Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

Thelonious Monk, recognizable by his goatee, dark glasses, and hat, is revered by jazz fans for his compositions and piano playing from the 1950s and 1960s. To a broader audience, he represents native genius and an original approach to jazz that has become difficult to define. Robin DG Kelley's biography draws on unprecedented access to Monk's closest friends and family, private papers, and recordings of Monk himself to reveal the person behind the public image. Monk's musical education combined African-American traditions including church hymns, call-and-response, and blues with Kansas City and New York swing music. His life included a marriage and fatherhood, as well as a relationship with an aristocratic Dutch patron of modern jazz known as 'the Jazz Baroness.' While Monk continued composing throughout his career, he experienced depression and erratic behavior. The biography examines how an energetic, joking young man became a tortured artist, and how the Monk mystique developed around him. Kelley presents Monk as a more complex and multifaceted figure than his public image suggests.