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In 1944 Coleman Hawkins hired him for his band which included Dizzy Gillespie, who was at the forefront of the bebop movement. Monk helped develop bebop as a more intellectual approach to music. If the guys wanted to throw somebody off, they called Monk’s “Epistrophy” which hardly anyone could play because of its difficult harmonic structure.

Monk’s music was incomprehensible to most at the outset, and even today many musicians are wary of tackling his eccentric pieces, full of dissonance and rhythmic displacement. Some of his works, in the style of the beboppers, are reharmonizations of standard tunes: “Blue Skies” is the basis for “In Walked Bud” and “Ja-Da,” for “Sixteen.”

Monk’s career took off in the late ‘50s with three important recordings: Brilliant Corners, Thelonious Himself, and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane. In 1959 he performed at Town Hall with an orchestra, made the cover of Time magazine in 1964, and toured Europe with his band, featuring saxophonist Charlie Rouse, his musical soul mate. His last performance was at the 1976 Newport Jazz Festival, after which he withdrew from the public eye until his death.

Monk is best appreciated as a soloist and his reinterpretations of standards are especially enlightening. Many of his compositions have become part of the jazz canon: “Blue Monk,” “Bemsha Swing,” “Well You Needn’t,” “Ruby My Dear,” “I Mean You,” and most notably “’Round Midnight.” Carmen McRae recorded his work in 1990 with several lyricists contributing words.

- Sandra Burlingame