Mostly raised in New York, Thelonious Monk taught himself piano before he was
six. In the early 1940s he landed a job as house pianist at Minton's Playhouse,
a Manhattan night club where he worked with many of the leading jazz musicians
of the day. Collaborations with brilliant mavericks like Dizzy Gillespie and
Charlie Parker inspired him to evolve the fast-tempo improvisational style that
came to be termed "be-bop" and his approach to jazz grew increasingly daring.
Monk was also noted for his strange fashion sense and idiosyncratic stage shows
but, during the 1940s and 1950s he...