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Quick Facts
- NAME: Thelonious Monk
- OCCUPATION: Songwriter, Pianist
- BIRTH DATE: October 10, 1917
- DEATH DATE: February 17, 1982
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Rocky Mount, North Carolina
- PLACE OF DEATH: Englewood, New Jersey
- Full Name: Thelonious Sphere Monk
- AKA: Thelonious Monk
Best Known For
Thelonious Monk is one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time and one of first creators of modern jazz.
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Thelonious Monk - An American Original
Author Robin Kelley discusses his biography, "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original." Click "Buy Now" to learn more about the book. Video courtesy of Simon & Schuster.
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Play NowThelonious Monk. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 04:43, May 23, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896.
Thelonious Monk. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896 [Accessed 23 May 2013].
"Thelonious Monk." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 23 2013, 04:43 http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896.
"Thelonious Monk," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896 [accessed May 23, 2013].
"Thelonious Monk," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896 (accessed May 23, 2013).
Thelonious Monk [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 23] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896.
Thelonious Monk, http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896 (last visited May 23, 2013).
Thelonious Monk. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/thelonious-monk-9411896. Accessed May 23, 2013.
Not content to pander ineffectively to a nonexistent audience, Monk turned a page with his 1956 album, Brilliant Corners, which is usually considered to be his first true masterpiece. The album's title track made a splash with its innovative, technically demanding, and extremely complex sound, which had to be edited together from many separate takes. With the release of two more Riverside masterworks,
Thelonious Himself and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, Monk finally received the acclaim he deserved.
In 1957, the Thelonious Monk Quartet, which included John Coltrane, began performing regularly at the Five Spot in New York. Enjoying huge success, they went on to tour the United States and even make some appearances in Europe. By 1962, Monk was so popular that he was given a contract with Columbia Records, a decidedly more mainstream label than Riverside. In 1964, Monk became one of four jazz musicians ever to grace the cover of Time Magazine.
The years that followed included several overseas tours, but by the early 1970s, Monk was ready to retire from the limelight; save for his 1971 recordings at Black Lion Records and the occasional appearance at the Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, Monk spent his final years living quietly in seclusion. After battling serious illness for several years, he passed away from a stroke in 1982. He has since been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, and featured on a United States postage stamp.
As a pioneering performer who managed to slip almost invisibly through the jazz community during the first half of his career, Monk is exactly the type of figure who invites rumor and exaggeration. The image the public has been left with is that of a demanding, eccentric recluse with an inborn gift for piano. The real person was more complex. "People don't think of Thelonious as Mr. Mom," his son points out, recalling his father changing diapers, "but I clearly saw him do the Mr. Mom thing, big-time."
Whatever Thelonious was to the media, it's clear what his legacy will be to jazz music: that of a true originator. Monk probably said it best when he insisted that a "genius is one who is most like himself."
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BOOKS
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Learn more about Thelonius Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley at Simon & Schuster.
Included In These Groups
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Famous Jazz Musicians
View groupWith its roots in the blues, jazz has been referred to as America's classical music, yet has also become a major global phenomenon, branching off into a variety of forms. Earlier pioneers like Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton paved the way for the swinging big-band sounds of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. In contrast, contemporaries Dizzie Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk developed bebop, with its speedy, dissonant harmonies and improvisations. And Miles Davis heralded the birth of cool jazz, modal jazz and fusion at different points in his career. Famous jazz instrumentalists have tended to be male, yet women have been at the forefront of the genre when it comes to vocalization, from the brassy blues of Bessie Smith to the haunting eclecticism of Nina Simone.
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Famous Pianists
View groupBrowse notable pianists such as Ray Charles, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Sun Ra.
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