When you’re composing music for a character named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in the movie American Fiction, it should be pretty obvious where a composer like Laura Karpman might find her inspiration.

EXCLUSIVE: Laura Karpman was drip-fed jazz notes when she was a baby. Her mother’s turn-table featured a playlist that included Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Wes Montgomery and Thelonious Monk, the ...

Composer Laura Karpman on how she created music to express the complex characters and ideas at the core of Cord Jefferson's sophisticated comedy. The way in which dialogue and score intertwine and ...