4. Thelonious MonkThelonious Alone In San Francisco

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I’d grown up listening to my mum’s records, but she didn’t really listen to him. He was someone I connected with, like ‘this is my door into this music.’ When I was at college, I practiced piano more than drums the first couple of years, and learned all his tunes on the piano. His music has all those extensions, but it also has this amazing groove and it’s very melodic. Hearing him play by himself is beautiful.