I can understand your perplexity about this matter: a few decades ago, the form JAZZ PIANIST AND COMPOSER THELONIOUS MONK would have been considered hardly acceptable in educated writing, as it would have had to be preceded by the article THE. The dropping of the article is the result of the influence of a certain kind of journalism and has spread into the academic sphere, so becoming acceptable, and indeed almost normative, in the GMAT.

In my view, the use of the article would help to resolve the doubt that you have raised: THE JAZZ PIANIST AND COMPOSER THELONIOUS MONK arguably indicates more clearly that the sentence is talking about only one man.

Nevertheless, this is not an option either here or - as far as I can see - anywhere else in the GMAT, and you have to deal with the test on its own terms.

It would be difficult to sustain that the phrase in question signifies two people. If that were the case, the first of these people would be JAZZ PIANIST. But who is JAZZ PIANIST? This would make no sense at all. Thus, you have to consider that the phrase JAZZ PIANIST AND COMPOSER THELONIOUS MONK refers to a single person.

Some examples of phrases of this kind referring to a single person would be: POLITICIAN AND NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST JAMES HARPER, DRAMATIST AND BUSINESSMAN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, and SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT BERNINI.

An example of a phrase of this kind referring to more than one person would be PAINTER AND SCULPTOR MICHELANGELO AND PAINTER AND INVENTOR LEONARDO DA VINCI (a very clumsy construction). The appearance of the name of the person in each case signifies that the previous nouns refer to that person.

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