Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

By Robin D. G. Kelley

Despite his current status as one of the music's most accomplished and influential composers – pieces such as 'Round Midnight', 'Straight, No Chaser', 'Rhythm-a-ning', 'Misterioso', 'Blue Monk' etc. are now essential parts of any self-respecting jazz musician's repertoire – Thelonious Monk the man has not been kindly dealt with by posterity.

Like Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Lester Young and a number of others, he has all too frequently been a victim of what might be summarised as the 'jazz legend' school of biographical writing, in which personal eccentricities and weaknesses, especially if they can be distorted to fit the 'doomed genius' paradigm so beloved of the more sensationalist biographers, are dwelt upon to the virtual exclusion of serious consideration of the subject's artistic worth.

Monk, with his penchant for unusual headgear, his tendency to dance to his own music on stage and his almost Milesian gnomic pronouncements to other musicians on how his pieces should be played, has provided such writers with rich pickings. Nat Hentoff, indeed, called him 'a stock cartoon figure for writers of Sunday supplement pieces about the exotica of jazz' and deeply regretted the fact that such articles made 'no attempt to discuss the nature or seriousness of his musical intentions'.

Complete on: http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/book-reviews/monk-life-and-times.html