Monk

 A post by someone on the Thelonious Monk society page triggered a memory in me. I was obsessed by jazz, through a kind of accident, and didn't have money from my allowance to buy records. I would listen to a station called "The music of your life," a radio thing back then geared toward WWII swing era people (who were alive back then in the early 70s, etc...).  Once in a while, amid all the kind of crappy sentimental stuff, they would stick in some genuine swing or some actual jazz, like maybe an Art Tatum.

What this gave me, also, was an understanding of the songs, because I could hear them sung in overly sweet arrangements, but I would still learn the melody and words to the songs of that period. 

Anyway, another way was to go a library and listen to a record using headphones. I listened to a Monk album of solo piano, with a super hesitant feel in the rubato passages. I was puzzled and fascinated at the same time. One of the records I did buy was called Solo Monk, where he uses that style. 

Monk played many of those old-time tunes that were also on that "Music of Your Life" station.  

(Anyway, the post in in TM society Facebook was about someone who didn't know jazz and was staying at someone's house and just listened to Monk without any prejudices and fell in love with the music.)