Thelonious Monk
The Life and Times of an American Original

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

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

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

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