Good morning, Whitewater.
Our work week ends with mostly sunny skies and a high of fifty-eight.
It’s a great musician’s birthday:
Thelonious Sphere Monk[2] (October 10, 1917[3] – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music.[4] Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight,” “Blue Monk,” “Ruby, My Dear,” “In Walked Bud,” and “Well, You Needn’t”. Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.[5]
His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This style was not universally appreciated, shown for instance in poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin’s dismissal of Monk as “the elephant on the keyboard”.[6]
He was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.
Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time, after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis.[7][8]
That calls for Straight, No Chaser:
Google-a-Day asks a history question:
What nation was the source of the missiles found aboard the Yemen-bound unflagged freighter intercepted by the Spanish SPS Navarra on December 9, 2002?