Happy Birthday, Thelonius

Ninety years ago today, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Thelonius Monk was born.

It took him longer than Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie to make it big, but "Straight, No Chaser", "Round About Midnight", and "Blue Monk", along with his albums of interpretations of Duke Ellington, will live forever.

John Coltrane once said: "I always had to be alert with Monk, because if you didn't keep aware all the time of what was going on you'd suddenly feel as if you'd stepped into an empty elevator shaft."