No biography has meant as much to me as Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press), by Robin D. G. Kelley. As I read, I felt I was coming to personally know Thelonious Monk as a complex, driven artist—rather than the “eccentric genius” described by critics, record producers, and others. Through Kelley’s clear writing (and he is a musician himself), I was there with Monk at jam sessions, at home, at performances, and I began to understand Monk’s vision as composer, arranger, performer. The book is, in addition to so much more, a record—a record that sets the record straight, or straighter, about the man and his music. And through this biography, and my listening to every Monk song I could get my hands on over the past few days, I am beginning to hear and feel the joy and intricate simplicity that drove Monk’s music.

I’ve come to understand how obsessed he was—and how humorously askance he looked at things; what a put-on he could be. How faithful he was to his art. How he could be intolerable. How his illness, whatever its source, wounded him and those around him, all while he was lovingly supported by friends and family, especially his wife, Nellie, through thick and thin; how baffling his mental illness was and still is for millions of others who suffer as he did and are ignored or misunderstood.

This biography will inspire any artist to trust his or her notions while not abandoning tradition, to look straight ahead, to ignore advice that doesn’t make sense to the artist. To work hard. And now I’ve begun to hear the humor and delight of Monk’s compositions, arrangements, and keyboard style. In this process of my finding his best recordings, of listening obsessively, I’m a changed man. I understand what all the fuss was about, and I now find myself part of the fuss.

While Kelley’s book about Monk gives us a view of the life and times of one jazz musician, Ferris’s book looks at the grand tradition of American blues and gospel music found in one state, Mississippi, in the sixties and seventies. Clearly such a tradition was there—and throughout the South—before Monk was born (in 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, before moving to New York at age four). These two exceptional works of literature are crucial for Southerners and other Americans who wish to better understand our rich musical heritage—our contribution to music on earth: blues, gospel, jazz. Here are great stories, great sounds, great images. Sit back, read, look, listen.