Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer who stands as one of the most original and idiosyncratic musical minds of all time. As the house pianist at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem during the early 1940s, Monk helped birth the bebop movement alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Monk was famous for his percussive attack, unorthodox finger technique, unexpected silences, and audacious dissonant chord clusters. Despite composing a relatively compact catalogue of around 70 tunes, he is the second most recorded jazz composer in history after Duke Ellington. Timeless masterpieces like ''Round Midnight', 'Straight, No Chaser', and 'Blue Monk' remain cornerstones of modern music.