Jazz is full of strange characters. Strange in a good way but strange nonetheless. One of the strangest and most interesting is Thelonious Monk. Known for his ostentatious sense of style, Monk often wore unique hats and and sunglasses.

His style translated into his playing as well, often while other musicians would continue to play Monk would stop and dance around for a few seconds before returning to the piano.

Despite having his cabaret card revoked for a time, making it impossible for him to play clubs in New York, Monk was one of the most prolific jazz players of all time. Monk is the second most recorded jazz composer off all time, behind only Duke Ellington. This is more impressive when you consider that Monk only wrote about 70 pieces where Ellington wrote around 1,000.

So far on this journey all of the artists have been pretty straight forward singers and players. Monk however was one of the original improvisors. Improvaisionatial jazz is an interesting world. Often sounding random its in the complexity that comes from composing on the fly that really makes it beautiful.

Day 6’s Song that inspires me is “Something in Blue”