Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

Robin D. G. Kelley

Simon and Schuster, Dec 8, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 608 pages

From the mind of brilliant historian Robin Kelley comes the first full biography of legendary jazz musician Thelonious Monk, including full access to the family's archives, dozens of interviews, and an afterword for Monk’s 2017 centennial.

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.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - BooksForDinner - LibraryThing

Read this seven or eight years ago, but listening to and playing a lot of Monk these days so revisiting. Even better the second time not that I am so much more intimate with his music.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - jasoncomely - LibraryThing

Thelonious Monk was a trendsetter, musical genius and a committed family man, but not particularly controversial. There's so much mystique surrounding the guy that I guess I expected more weirdness. This one I DNF'd half-way through.

Contents

• My Mother Didnt Want Me to Grow Up in North Carolina 1: 1
• What Is Jazz? New York Man 15: 15
• I Always Did Want to Play Piano: 25
• We Played and She Healed: 40
• Why Cant You Play Music Like the Ink Spots?: 51
• They Werent Giving Any Lectures: 60
• Since You Went Away I Missed You: 76
• Im Trying to See If Its a Hit: 89
• Dizzy and Bird Did Nothing for Me Musically: 104
• The George Washington of Bebop: 122
• Its a Drag to Be in Jail: 143
• The Un Years: 156
• France Libre: 170
• Sometimes I Play Things I Never Heard Myself: 178
• The Greta Garbo of Jazz: 187
• As Long as I Can Make a Living: 198
• People Have Tried to Put Me Off as Being Crazy: 214
• My Time for Fame Will Come: 225
• The Police Just Mess with You for Nothing: 240
• Make Sure Them Tempos Are Right: 257
• Hell I Did That TwentyFive Years Ago: 279
• Bebopens Oversteprast: 298
• Maybe Im a Major Influence: 310
• Everything Begins Here and Everything Ends Here: 327
• Thats a Drag Picture Theyre Paintin of Me: 345
• Sometimes I Dont Feel Like Talking: 363
• Let Someone Else Create Something New: 386
• What Do I Have to Do? Play Myself to Death?: 409
• Postlude: 449
• Acknowledgments: 457
• A Technical Note on Monks Music: 465
• Original Compositions by Thelonious Monk: 569
• Selected Recordings by Thelonious Monk: 577

About the author

Robin D. G. Kelley teaches History at UCLA and is the author of several books, including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination and Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
• Author: Robin D. G. Kelley
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2009
• ISBN: 1439190496, 9781439190494
• Length: 608 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General; Biography & Autobiography / Music; Music / General; Music / Genres & Styles / Jazz