Thelonious Monk, Robin DG Kelley
Thelonious Monk, Robin DG Kelley
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Thelonious Monk
The Life and Times of an American Original

Author: Robin DG Kelley

Narrator: Sean Crisden

Unabridged: 25 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/03/2017


Synopsis

Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist's struggle to "make it" without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the twentieth century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of "bebop" and establishing Monk as one of America's greatest composers. Elegantly written and rich with humor and pathos, Thelonious Monk is the definitive work on modern jazz's most original composer.

About Robin DG Kelley

Author and historian Robin D. G. Kelley is one of the most distinguished experts on African American studies and a celebrated professor who has lectured at some of America's highest learning institutions. He is currently professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Thelonious Monk: His Story, His Song, His Times and is best known for his books on African American culture: Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class, Yo' Mama's DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. His career spans several esteemed universities, including serving as a professor of history and Africana at New York University as well as acting as chairman of NYU's History Department. While at NYU, Kelley was one of the youngest full professors in the country at thirty-two years of age. He was also the William B. Ransford Professor of Cultural and Historical Studies at Columbia and helped to shape programs at its Institute for Research in African American Studies. Kelley's work includes seven books as well as over 100 magazine articles, which have been featured in such publications as the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Code Magazine, Utne Reader, and African Studies Review.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on May 28, 2018

Continuing in my reading about jazz, I just finished the masterpiece Thelonious Monk by Robin D. G. Kelley. It was an incredible read about a largely misunderstood genius. I have always enjoyed listening to Monk, but never exactly understood why. Now, I understand that he would decompose chords by r......more

Thelonious Sphere* (* yes, that's his middle name) Monk. What do you know about this dude? Are you into jazz? Have you sampled any of his bag? Misterioso? Blue Monk? Epistrophy? Ruby, My Dear? Do you have any interest in the man behind the music? His relationships with guys like John Coltrane, Miles......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on October 30, 2020

Obviously if you are even a little bit of a Monk-head, you need to read this. My only criticisms would be that there were a few too many excuses or justifications for Monk's behavior when it would have been better to simply accept that, like most of us, he could be an asshole sometimes. I don't real......more

Goodreads review by Matt on August 12, 2010

Hard to rate -- if I'm going on exhaustive research and attention to detail, I'd give it 5 stars. It reads a little slow and tends to get into a play by play of "how the shows went over" a bit too much, I thought, but generally this was an incredible, interesting read. It's sometimes hard to connect......more

Goodreads review by Craig on March 18, 2019

A detailed and masterful biography of my favorite jazzman and the pianist Duke Ellington once saluted as having "the baddest left hand in the history of jazz." I started reading this book in April and soon discovered I couldn't just zoom through it the way I do most books. I had to take my time. I h......more