1. 'Round Midnight - 3:49 (B. Hanighen/C. Williams/T. Monk)
Thelonious Monk - piano
Recorded: 11/19/68
2. Well You Needn't - 9:15 (T. Monk)
T. Monk - piano; Charlie Rouse - tenor saxophone; Larry Gales - bass;
Ben Riley - drums
Recorded: 10/31/64
3. Bemsha Swing - 4:29 (T. Monk/D. Best)
C. Rouse - tenor saxophone; Butch Warren - bass; Frankie Dunlop -
drums
Recorded: 5/21/63
4. Ruby, My Dear - 5:38 (T. Monk)
T. Monk - piano
Recorded: 5/2/65
5. Straight, No Chaser - 7:17 (T. Monk)
T. Monk - piano; Ernie Small, Thomas Scott, Gene Cipriano, Ernest Watts,
C. Rouse - saxophones; Robert Bryant, Fredrick Hill, Conte Candoli -
trumpets; Bob Brookmeyer - valve trombone; William Byers, Mike
Wimberly - trombones; Howard Roberts - guitar; L. Gales - bass; B. Riley
- drums; John Guerin - percussion
Recorded: 11/19/68
6. Blue Monk - 6:14 (T. Monk)
Same personnel and record date as "Straight, No Chaser"
7. Rhythm-A-Ning - 3:52 (T. Monk)
T. Monk - piano; C. Rouse - tenor saxophone; John Ore - bass; F. Dunlop
- drums
Recorded: 11/6/62
8. Monk's Dream - 6:25 (T. Monk)
Same personnel as "Rhythm-A-Ning"
Recorded: 11/2/62
9. Misterioso - 9:47 (T. Monk)
T. Monk - piano; C. Rouse - tenor saxophone; B. Warren - bass; F. Dunlop
- drums
Recorded: 12/30/63
10. Epistrophy - 2:01 (T. Monk/K. Clarke)
Thad Jones - cornet; Nick Travis - trumpet; C. Rouse - tenor saxophone;
Steve Lacy - soprano saxophone; Phil Woods - alto saxophone, clarinet;
Gene Allen - baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, clarinet; Eddie Bert -
trombone; T. Monk - piano; B. Warren - bass; F. Dunlop - drums
Recorded: 12/30/63
Jazz has always been a music of individualists. But in that music, pianist and composer Thelonious Monk was an individualist among individualists. He arrived on the scene in the 1940s and was seen as part of the so-called "bebop" movement, but he was never really part of any movement. Monk was timeless.
Monk's road to recongnition was hard, despite the admiration and help of a few elder statesmen like tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who hired him in the 1940s. To many listeners, Monk's playing sounded wrong, or primitive. Today we can see how natural and unforced his music is, but at the time it sounded strange to many people. Monk's reponse was that an artist needed to play what he heard, and the public would just have to catch up to him.
One thing that helped the public "catch up" to Monk was his genius as a composer. Every tune on this disc was composed by him, and almost every one is a jazz standard. One of the ways in which Monk became known was that musicians loved to play his tunes, with their fresh and unusual harmonies and tricky accenting. Songs like "'Round Midnight," "Blue Monk," and "Straight, No Chaser" are in every jazz musician's repertoire.
Thelonious Sphere Monk was born in North Carolina in 1920, but he grew up in New York City, where he heard earlier jazz musicians and developed a love for stride piano as played by James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. In the early 1940s, Monk spent much of his time playing at Minton's, a club in Harlem known as one of the incubators of modern jazz, where he got to know trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Bud Powell, and other "modernists" who helped popularize his hightly personal, ingenious tunes.
As a player, Monk had a harder time gaining acceptance. He recorded very little during the 1940s and was regarded as being too "far-out" for the general public. He continued scuffling through the early 1950s, recording only sporadically, until a series of breakthrough albums introduced him to a larger audience.
The tracks in this set were made after Monk had been accepted by the jazz audience, when he was recognized for the treasure that he was and had a regularly working group that provided a perfect setting for him. You will hear a couple of brilliant solo recordings that show his unique piano style to great advantage on his beautiful ballads "'Round Midnight" and "Ruby, My Dear." No one ever played piano in the way Monk did; his way had almost nothign in common with European classical tradition. He used the piano as a tuned percussion instrument, in a way all his own. His great quartet is also heard steaming through Monk signature pieces like "Well You Needn't" and Misterioso."
Above all, though, Monk's music is clear and balanced. Critics have called his work angular and jagged, but in fact it is as natural as breathing. He swings as hard as anyone who ever played. Listen, too, for his wonderful sense of humor.
Off the bandstand, Monk was as unconventional and profound as his music. When he died, in 1982, the world mourned him, as it always mourns its unique artists. His is an irreplaceable legacy.
Tom Piazza
Tom Piazza is the author of "The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz"
(U. of Iowa Press) and the short story collection "Blues and Trouble"
(St. Martin's Press).