Thelonious Monk Research Paper

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Dan Pearson Kunz Jazz Ensemble 13 November 2014 Thelonious Monk Thelonious Monk was an American jazz pianist, as well as a composer. He is considered to be one of the biggest people in American music. Monk had a unique style which was more of a n improvisational style. He made many contributions to the standard jazz repertoire. Among those the contributions were pieces like “Ruby, My Dear,” “In Walked Bud,” and “Well, You Needn’t”. Thelonious is the second most recorded jazz composer. The first is Duke Ellington. Monk wrote about seventy pieces where Ellington composed more than one thousand. Monk was born on October 10, 1917. He was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and he died at age 64 in February 17, 1982. Thelonious really only played the piano and he was active between the 1940’s and 1973. He was named after his dad and his mom’s name was Barbara Monk. He had a sister that was two years older than him and a brother that was born in January of 1920. Thelonious started playing the piano at the young age of six. Monk mainly self-taught himself even though he studied music theory, harmony, and arranging at the Juilliard School of Music. A interesting fact about Thelonious Monk is that he didn’t actually graduate from high school. What he did do was toured with an evangelist in his teens while he played the church organ. In his late teens he began to…show more content…
This place was a Manhattan nightclub. A lof of his style was developing during his time at this nightclub. Mainly when he participated in after-hours which were “cutting competitions”. These featured many leading jazz soloists many of the times. His scene was very important in the formation of bebop. Since that was the case it brought Monk into close contact with other leading exponents of the emerging music. Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker, and finally later on Miles
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