Thelonious Monk
Piano Solo on
Misterioso

About

Thelonious Monk's piano solo is the second of two improvisations on this performance of his iconic composition. Taking three choruses of the 12-bar blues in B-flat at a slow 71 BPM, Monk navigates his own piece with the angular, percussive piano style that is inseparable from the composition itself. His solo draws on the distinctive ascending and descending sixth intervals that form the basis of the theme, reinterpreting and fragmenting these motifs with the idiosyncratic logic that makes his playing unlike anyone else's.

Thelonious Monk was 40 to 41 years old at the time.