Monk's Blues
| Monk's Blues | ||||
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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) |
9/11 |
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running time |
56:01 (CD) |
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| occupation |
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Teo Macero ; John Snyder (Reissue) |
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Studio (s) |
los Angeles |
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Monk's Blues is an album by Thelonious Monk . It was created during two sessions that took place on November 19 and 20, 1968 in Los Angeles with a studio big band . With two exceptions, the album only contains compositions by Monk in arrangements by Oliver Nelson . The recordings were released in 1969 as a long-playing record and in 1990 as a compact disc by Columbia Records, expanded by two titles .
background
The Columbia label's idea that Monk should record with a big band was inspired by the pianist's performance at New York's Town Hall in February 1959, according to all- music critic Lindsay Planer (the resulting album was released on Riverside as The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall ). The challenge of arranging Monk's music for the big band instrumentation lay with Oliver Nelson, whose most famous works included a range of television themed music - including Ironside , Columbo and Six Million Dollar Man . Many of the same arrangement techniques also flow into the approach Nelson used for Monk's Blues .
Monk's Blues , recorded in 1968, "was a lush, rather unwise" collaboration by a large ensemble under the direction of Oliver Nelson, which marked the end of Monk's active participation on the major Columbia label , said Kenny Mathieson. The result, first under the title Thelonious Sphere Monk: Monk's Blues , then as part of the double album Who's Afraid of the Big Band Monk? (ed. 1974, coupled with Monk's appearance with big band in the Philharmonic Hall in December 1963), was initiated by the Columbia label out of commercial considerations.
Track list
- Thelonious Sphere Monk - Monk's Blues (Columbia PC 9806)
A1 Let's Cool One (Monk) 3:47
A2 Reflections (Monk) 4:35
A3 Rootie Tootie (Monk) 7:35
A4 Just a Glance at Love ( Teo Macero ) 2:52
A5 Brilliant Corners (Monk) 3:52
B1 Consecutive Seconds (Teo Macero) 2:41
B2 Monk's Point (Monk) 8:03
B3 Trinkle Tinkle (Monk) 4:59
B4 Straight, No Chaser (Monk) 7:20
- The CD edition contained the two bonus tracks “Blue Monk” (6:14) and “ Round Midnight ” (4:13).
reception
The opinions of jazz critics on this record were mostly negative ("In a just world, Oliver Nelson would have served a prison sentence for these arrangements," it said in JazzTimes ). Lindsay Planer said in Allmusic that “Rootie Tootie” would be destroyed by a revised brass section that drowned Monk's playing completely. “Consecutive Seconds” - one of the two compositions by producer Teo Macero - is “simply miserable. If this was an attempt to get Monk to play soul music , it failed. ”Thelonious's genius, however, shows itself in some of the more sensible and sensitive arrangements such as“ Reflections ”,“ Monk's Point ”and the surprisingly tasteful“ Brilliant Corners ” ". From the bonus tracks of the CD edition, “Blue Monk” offers a rousing Solo Monks. "'Round Midnight" is a previously unreleased solo that was created during the Monk's Blues sessions. "The sheer brilliance of Monk's emotional and seemingly frustrated intonations could well be an exorcism for the sins of the rest of the album," is Planner's summary.
According to Thomas Fitterling, the album was "Monk's fall from mansion before the All-American commercial sound god, the sound ideal that unites Broadway , Hollywood film and TV show." Monk actually took part in this undertaking as a solo star and denied his style; "The bombastic large orchestra swamp that covers every Monk sound conception shamelessly shatters the Monk compositions," criticized the Monk biographer. Richard Cook and Brian Morton were somewhat more gracious in their criticism; they gave the album three stars. In her opinion, Nelson provides Monk's complex compositions with some compelling arrangements.
Individual evidence
- ^ Kenny Mathieson: Giant Steps: Bebop and the Creators of Modern Jazz, 1945-65 . Payback Press, 1999.
- ↑ Cf. Georg Baselitz : A photographic study. Benteli, 1994
- ↑ Thelonious Sphere Monk - Monk's Blues (LP) at Discogs
- ↑ Thelonious Sphere Monk - Monk's Blues (CD) at Discogs
- ^ Jazz Times, Volume 31, Issues 6-10. 2001
- ^ Review of the album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved February 19, 2020.
- ↑ Thomas Fitterling: Thelonious Monk. His life, his music, his records. Oreos, Waakirchen 1987, ISBN 3-923657-14-5 .
- ↑ Quotation Cook & Morton, Penguin Guide “to Jazz”, 1993, p. 918.