Thelonious Monk — 1970s Tee

By the time the 1970s rolled around, Thelonious Monk (1917–1982) was already one of the true giants of American music. A founding architect of bebop, Monk had spent the 1940s and 1950s turning jazz inside out with strange, beautiful harmonies, off-kilter rhythms, and piano playing that sounded like it had been beamed in from another planet.

Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and raised in New York City, Monk became one of the most original composers in the history of jazz, giving us standards like Round Midnight, Straight, No Chaser, Blue Monk, Well, You Needn't, and Epistrophy.

Monk didn't play the piano the way polite society might have preferred. His style was percussive, dissonant, playful, and completely his own. He'd stab at the keys, leave unexpected spaces, repeat strange little phrases, and somehow make it all swing like hell.