Thelonious Monk

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Family

American jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the world’s most important and eccentric jazz figures and sometimes referred to as "The High Priest of Bebop." Monk's most productive years were from 1945 to 1965 when he put out a volume of work. From 1971-1972, he toured the world with "The Giants of Jazz" and in 1978 received a special tribute at President Jimmy Carter’s White House jazz party. He began to play by ear as a child, then took lessons at age 12 after the family moved from North Carolina to New York. In the late '30s he played piano with a traveling evangelist show. Primarily working with groups and small bands, he did gigs in New York and formed a big band in 1959 that played intermittently. The family stayed in one New York neighborhood which, in 1983, saw a portion renamed Thelonius Sphere Monk Circle. His son, Thelonious Monk Jr., became a drummer and continues his father’s legacy and helped establish the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. He died of a cerebral aneurysm on 17 February 1982 in Englewood, New Jersey. Link to Wikipedia biography