Mysterious Thelonious

More about the book

Audacious and extraordinary, this picture book is not a portrait of the great pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. Imagine, instead, that the music of Mr. Monk were to sit for a portrait. It might look something like this -- enticing and unexpected, richly colored and patterned, brilliantly executed. Inspired by one of Monk's best-loved compositions, "Mysterioso", Mr. Raschka matched the twelve musical tones of the diatonic scale to the twelve color values of the color wheel, then set paint strokes for notes and color washes for harmonies. "There were", the text says of Mr. Monk, "no wrong notes on his piano". There are, as well, no wrong notes in this astonishing tribute to his genius.