"Even people who don’t know much about jazz are aware that jazz musicians are meant to be 'characters' – free-spirited types whose absorption in music generates bizarre behaviour. Though this hipster mythology is exaggerated, it seemed made for Thelonious Monk. His mystique was compounded by his unforgettable name (albeit the same as his father's), his taste for exotic headgear, a penchant for breaking into impromptu dances on the bandstand and a jabbing, idiosyncratic piano style punctuated by the silences which also marked his everyday demeanour. But Monk's media status as the 'high priest of bebop' obscured the real nature of his achievement. At a time when modern jazz was dominated by harmonic legerdemain and omnivorous technique, he showed that a deep-rooted personal vision was still possible. Monk's compositions were unlike anyone else's, full of curiously stretched and sharply angled chords, wrong-footing rhythms, melodies that could be gnomic, rich or grainily lyrical. He defied facility. When you played Monk, you played him on his terms, and his best interpreter was probably himself. His approach to the piano could seem splayed and halting – one fleet-fingered rival dismissed him as 'hamstrung' – but he could produce marvellous, probing colours, somehow getting in between the keys to make the piano seem the ultimate blues instrument. And he swung enormously, with spikey accents and clangorous, tumbling runs. As a soloist or accompanist, his timing was perfect, and he could galvanise a rhythm section by knowing exactly when and when not to play. Listening to Monk can easily become a lifelong habit, since what he has to offer is unavailable anywhere else."