Staff Pick: Thelonious Monk Unmasked

A decade and a half in the making, Robin D.G. Kelley’s glorious new biography, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original is the most impressive piece of jazz scholarship to arrive in decades. Sitting behind the pianist/composer's eccentric image is a body of work as durable and, at times, as beautiful as any in modern American music. With complete access to the family archives, Kelley makes the most of it. A historian at the University of Southern California, his deep research creates a big palette to paint the scenes of Monk's life as no other writer has. The grinding poverty of his early career, medical history that unlocks new insights into his creative process and the heroic role his wife Nellie played in allowing Monk to be steadfast to his music are all central to the story. A line from David Yaffe's recent review in The Nation captures the twists and turns of his career, "constantly underpaid and underappreciated, rejected as too weird on his way up and dismissed as old hat once he made his improbable climb." Kelley sifts past the foggy myths and provides real texture to Monk's life for the first time.