Portrait of Thelonious Monk, Minton's Playhouse, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947. William P. Gottlieb Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.
It’s that time again – today another 100 photographs have been uploaded to the Gottlieb Jazz Photos Set on Flickr! The set is comprised of uncropped images from the William P. Gottlieb Collection, all of which depict the Jazz scene in New York City and Washington, DC between 1938 and 1948. We keep adding more images to the set every couple of weeks, and today’s upload features several photos of Thelonious Monk, which is quite fitting as we celebrate what would be Monk’s 93rd birthday this Sunday! Aside from these wonderful images of the jazz legend, we also hold in our collections 30 of Monk’s lead sheets for pieces like “Epistrophy”, “Blue Monk”, “Straight, No Chaser” and more. All of the lead sheets are either holograph manuscripts (in the composer’s hand) or photocopies of holographs. So why not take a listen to Monk’s music, check out his photos on Flickr, and pay homage to the jazz great on his special day!