Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

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 com-posers.

Elegantly written and rich with humor and pathos, Thelonious Monk is the definitive work on modern jazz's most original composer.

Author: Robin D. G. Kelley
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 11/02/2010
Pages: 624
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.80w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9781439190463
Award: Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award - Winner

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 11/15/2010 pg. 24

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