Misunderstood in his own lifetime, but in time elevated to the pantheon of composers that make him as relevant today as he was in the heyday of bebop, the totemic presence and music of Thelonious Monk forms the bedrock of a new monumental work by Jason Moran. The pianist, who tours the UK this month, with an Anglo-US band, has taken Monk’s At Town Hall and reimagined it for the jazz of today. Kevin Le Gendre talks to Moran about how he got inside the mind of the one and only Monk.

Hailed as genius and charlatan, generous soul and an unstable eccentric, Thelonious Monk is more than a grandiose figure in the jazz pantheon. He is one of America’s great personalities, a man who inspires for singularity of character as well as depth of artistic achievement.

He has exerted a hold on other players for decades. In the 1960s they eulogised him – Eric Dolphy’s composition ‘Hat And Beard’. In the 80s they formed groups to uphold his legacy – Sphere, the quartet led by Monk’s former sideman Charlie Rouse. And in the millennium, they assembled orchestras to play his entire songbook — the Monk Liberation Front, whose performances have been a highlight of recent editions of the London Jazz Festival.

Next month British audiences will be able to hear the American pianist Jason Moran make his contribution to this ongoing Monk memorial with a specially commissioned project, the genesis of which goes back to last summer.

“I was approached by the San Francisco Jazz Festival who were getting schedules together for celebrations for Monk’s 90th year and asked if I would perform Monk’s At Town Hall concert from 1959,” the 32-year-old says over the phone from his home in New York, his four month-old son Jonas, who also has a twin brother Malcolm, a boisterous presence in the background.

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