August Kleinzahler, in a review of Robin D. G. Kelley’s Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press):
Always a sharp dresser and stickler for just the right look, he also favored a wide array of unconventional headgear: astrakhan, Japanese skullcap, Stetson, tam-o’-shanter. He had a trickster sense of humor, in life and in music, and he loved keeping people off-balance in both realms. Off-balance was the plane on which Monk existed.
“Monk’s Moods” (New York Times)Related posts
T. MONK'S ADVICE (1960)
Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane
Don’t miss the review of Mark Garvey’s new book about Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Matt. I’m waiting on a copy to review (and thus practicing “custody of the eyes,” not looking at reviews yet).
ReplyDeleteI see that we liked the same Monk passage.
I debated whether to include the Monk book review in my digest, actually. But after seeing your post about it, and the quote you pulled from it, I decided to throw it in.
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