A lot of Monk's songs are blues. He also liked the 32 AABA form, and some oddly shaped forms that don't fall into those categories. He liked contrafacta.
The motifs are angular and difficult, but also catchy and melodic. Think of the central motif of "Straight no Chaser," or "Misterioso," or "Blue Monk," Think of Andrew Hill. I like him a lot, and he is also a piano player known for original songs, somewhat in the Monk mode, but I can't hum a single melody to an Andrew Hill composition, despite my having listened to them many times. Ornette is a much more talented melodist than Hill is.
What interests me about the motif is how small it can be. The technical definition is the shortest possible musical idea. Bernstein in his concert for young people points out that the motif is not a tune, and longer melodies are not as useful as building blocks than these very, very short ideas are. Not that I don't like what LB is calling "tunes," but I also like motivic development. Sometimes, I guess, there is a lot of motivic development that might be be intelligent composition, but that I don't feel as super interesting. You can have to best of both worlds if the original motif is distinctive and catchy rather than bland.
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