It's Monk's Time
| It's Monk's Time | ||||
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| Studio album by Thelonious Monk | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Columbia Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
6/9 |
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running time |
47:59 (LP) |
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Studio (s) |
New York City |
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It's Monk's Time is an album by Thelonious Monk . The recordings, which were made in New York's Columbia Studio on January 29 and 30, 1964, as well as on February 10, 1964 and March 9, 1964, were released on Columbia Records in 1964 as a long-playing record and in 1999 for the first time as a compact disc . In 2003 Columbia released an expanded edition of It's Monk's Time in the Legacy series with three bonus tracks, two of which were previously unreleased.
background
It's Monk's Time contained three original compositions by the pianist and three jazz standards . It was Monk's first album with drummer Ben Riley , who came on as a replacement for Frankie Dunlop , who suddenly left the club in the last week of January . As on the previous album, Big Band and Quartet in Concert , the bassist was Butch Warren ; the quartet was completed by tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse .
The band struggled with the recording: At the very first session, which was more like a rehearsal, only one track was written, a solo piece by Monk, and the following day a piece with the quartet. On February 10th, only two titles were finished in six studio hours.
The styles of the Stride legends are immediately recognizable in the Monks game , from the well-known Willie The Lion Smith and James P. Johnson to the somewhat more obscure and decidedly hectic game of Cliff Jackson to the ragtime approach of Walter L. Rose .
The title of the album turned out to be somewhat prophetic, wrote Lindsay Planer, because Time Magazine presented Monk as the cover motif for the February 28, 1964 issue.
Track list
- Thelonious Monk - It's Monk's Time (Columbia - CS 8984)
- A side
- Lulu's Back in Town ( Al Dubin , Harry Warren ) - 9:55
- Memories of You ( Andy Razaf , Eubie Blake ) - 6:06
- Stuffy Turkey (Monk) - 8:16
- B side
- Brake's Sake (Monk) - 12:29
- Nice Work If You Can Get It ( George Gershwin , Ira Gershwin ) - 4:15
- Shuffle Boil (Monk) - 7:09
- Bonus tracks (CD edition)
- Epistrophy (Take 1) ( Kenny Clarke , Th. Monk) 5:04
- Nice Work If You Can Get It (Take 2) (G. & I. Gershwin) 4:06
- Shuffle Boil (Take 5) (Monk) 4:51
Recording dates
“Nice Work If You Can Geit It” (piano solo) was written on January 29, 1964, “Shuffy Turkey” on January 30. "Lulu's Back in Town" and "Brake's Sake" were recorded on February 10, 1964, and "Memories of You" and "Suffle Boil" on March 9, 1964.
reception
Lindsay Planer said in Allmusic that It's Monk's Time contains "some of the best - if not the best - studio pages that the pianist has recorded in his last years as a musician." There is a touch of playfulness in Monk's nimble keyboard work, says the author. especially with the wonderful, unaccompanied opening of “Lulu's Back in Town”, and the same downright mischievous quality also drives the solo performance of “Nice Work if You Can Get It”. Both pop standards are prime examples of the inimitable approach of the bop pioneer to arranging and also offer an impressive insight into his influences.
According to Thomas Fitterling, "the trend from sharp, brittle to light-footed elegance" is typical for this album. While the Monk composition "Brake's Sake" has an "almost disappointingly simple" AABA structure, "Brake's Sake" is an "extremely original theme made from the best Monk grist and grain."
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Robert R. Calder went into his review in Pop Matters (2003) on the role of Charlie Rouse in the Monk Quartet; “Charlie Rouse was forever underrated, more than anyone else who fell victim to a series of recordings he and Thelonious Monk made with all of them top-notch bassists and drummers. When quartet reviewers got tired of it, Rouse was blamed. However, there is seldom any basis for music fatigue other than comparing it to something even better by the same men, ”said the author. Monk had always insisted, Calder continued, “that his sidemen improvised over his melodic lines, not just with the underlying harmonic structures. On the flip side, Rouse has been criticized for being overly compatible, although when Humphrey Lyttelton was looking for an example of a recording where the sideman was over the leader, he picked a Rouse title with Monk. Rouse's masterpiece is in an obscure session with the brilliant, late bop pianist Sonny Clark , where his closeness to Coleman Hawkins is most evident. The main difference is simply that Rouse has carved out some of the expressive harmonics below and above his saxophone tone. Hear Rouse with Hawkins and Phil Woods in Benny Carter's brilliant Further Definitions set. Rouse's style contained a lot of history, and instead of being a distillation of jazz like other men, Monk's [style] was a critical synthesis. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dunlop wanted to quit as a musician and become an actor. See Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Free Press: New York, pp. 349f.
- ^ Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, pp. 350ff.
- ↑ a b c Review of the album at Allmusic (English). Accessed February 1, 2020.
- ↑ Thelonious Monk - It's Monk's Time at Discogs
- ↑ Thomas Fitterling: Thelonious Monk. His life, his music, his records. Oreos, Waakirchen 1987, ISBN 3-923657-14-5 .
- ^ Robert R. Calder: Thelonious Monk: It's Monk's Time. PopMatters, September 25, 2003, accessed January 7, 2020 .