Monk's Dream

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Monk's Dream
Studio album by Thelonious Monk

Publication
(s)

1962

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

8/12

running time

46:28 (LP)

occupation
  • Piano: Thelonious Monk

production

Teo Macero (Original LP), Seth Rothstein , Orrin Keepnews (Reissue)

Studio (s)

30th Street Studio, New York City

chronology
Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane
(1961) 		Monk's Dream Two Hours with Thelonious
(1963)
Template: Info box music album / maintenance / parameter error

Monk's Dream is an album by Thelonious Monk and the first album for the major label Columbia Records . It was recorded at Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City for four days between October 31 and November 6, 1962 , and was released on Columbia Records in March 1963. It was released as a compact disc in 1992, expanded by four titles .

background

The pianist recorded Monk's Dream with his regular quartet, which consisted of Monk's tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse , bassist John Ore and Frankie Dunlop on drums. "Bye-Ya" and "Bolivar Blues" were recorded on October 31, 1962; "Body and Soul" and "Bright Mississippi" on November 1st, "Sweet and Lovely", "Just a Gigolo" and "Monk's Dream" on November 2nd and "Five Spot Blues" on November 6th, 1962. "Bright Mississippi “Was the only track on the album that Monk hadn't recorded yet. "Bolivar Blues" was originally called "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are" and was featured on Monk's 1957 Riverside album Brilliant Corners . "Five Spot Blues" was originally called "Blues Five Spot" and first appeared on the album Thelonious in Action , which was recorded live in 1958 at the Five Spot Cafe in New York and released on Riverside. "Monk's Dream", "Bye-Ya" and "Sweet and Lovely" were already recorded ten years earlier by Monk for Prestige Records .

Monk was famous for recycling his repertoire over and over again, and the material in here was not new. The only track that wasn't recorded at least once before was Monk's “Bright Mississippi”, which was based on the harmony of “ Sweet Georgia Brown ”. The album begins with the title track; Here, too, as in the following Columbia productions, there are two solo pieces, the standards "Body and Soul" and "Just a Gigolo". These songs, arranged as a second song on each side of the original LP, tore things up a bit and focused the listener on the pianist as he deconstructed these two standards. This gives the listener another opportunity to soak up the complexity of their playing, wrote the All About Jazz critic .

Regarding the production method of Columbia, Thomas Fitterling wrote that the individual albums were not created as closed productions that were planned as individual projects. Rather, Teo Macero let the pianist play regularly in the studio or live. The panels were then assembled from the material obtained in this way. What was initially ignored was later published or was eventually used on the compilation Alwaye Know (1979). Two tracks that were recorded at the first Columbia session, "Hackensack" and "Rhythm-a-Ning" appeared on the follow-up album Criss-Cross (1963).

Track list

Original LP

  • The Thelonious Monk Quartet: Monk's Dream (Columbia - CL 1965)
  1. Monk's Dream (Take 8) (Monk) 6:26
  2. Body and Soul (Re-Take 2) (Heyman, Eyton, Green, Sour) 4:28
  3. Bright Mississippi (Take 1) (Monk) 8:36
  4. Blues Five Spot (Monk) 3:14
  5. Blue Bolivar Blues (Take 2) (Monk) 7:31
  6. Just a Gigolo ( Irving Caesar , Julius Brammer , Leonello Casucci ) 2:28
  7. Bye-Ya (Monk) 5:23
  8. Sweet and Lovely ( Gus Arnheim , Harry Tobias, Jules Lemare) 7:52

Extended CD Edition (1992)

  • The Thelonious Monk Quartet - Monk's Dream (Columbia - CK 63536, Legacy - CK 63536)
  1. Monk's Dream (Take 8) 6:26
  2. Body and Soul (Re-Take 2) 4:28
  3. Bright Mississippi (Take 1) 8:36
  4. Blues Five Spot 3:14
  5. Blue Bolivar Blues (Take 2) 7:30
  6. Just a Gigolo 2:27
  7. Bye-Ya 5:23
  8. Sweet and Lovely 7:52
  9. Monk's Dream (Take 3) 5:14
  10. Body and Soul (Take 1) 5:05
  11. Bright Mississippi (Take 3) 10:20
  12. Blue Bolivar Blues (Take 1) 6:12

reception

Lindsay Planer gave the album the highest rating of five stars in Allmusic and wrote: "Although he would perform and record with the support of various other musicians, the narrow - almost telepathic - dimension that these four had in common was not achieved in any genre." Tracks like "Five Spot Blues" and "Bolivar Blues" demonstrated their uncanny skills to Rouse and Dunlop by forcing in well-placed instrumental fills without being hit by the unpredictable rhythmic frisbees that Monk tosses around.

According to Thomas Fitterling, Monk has found Monk 's Dream "with an ensemble to the highest degree of leader-shaped group identity so far." It is as if this perfectly well-coordinated quartet, whose interactions are characterized by Monk's sound concept down to the smallest drum accent, only waited for this recording date in order to be able to affirm as closely as possible. The musical events remain limited to the essentials, the author sums up; “Filler solos” would not appear here.

Thelonious Monk at a concert in the Concertgebouw , April 15, 1961

The All About Jazz critic wrote that after such classic albums as Monk's Music and Brilliant Corners (1957) on Riverside, Monk's Dream was really the record that cemented his legacy. The quartet's format would age a bit in the following years, the author believes, but it sounds absolutely fresh here on his 1963 debut album with Columbia. Up to this point, Monk had led groups of different sizes and also played solo, “but Monk has a special feature in a quartet: with just one horn before the solo, we get a great double serving of Monk, both as a soloist and as part of the Rhythm group “There are no classics written by Monk like“ Round Midnight ”,“ Epistrophy ”,“ Blue Monk ”,“ 52nd Street Theme ”or“ Straight No Chaser ”on this album ,“ but in a way that supports the argument To make this concept of a great album even clearer, you get 'Blues Five Spot', 'Bye-Ya', 'Blue Bolivar Blues' and 'Sweet and Lovely' and they all go together. ”It is difficult to say exactly what made this album a permanent milestone, the author sums up. Was it the sheer excitement of a well rehearsed band that was recorded for the first time for a big label? Was the advent of the avant-garde and post-bop the tuning of the jazz ears to different sounds? Was it the beauty of the music? His other albums may have had more classic material, a more famous line-up or whatever, but this was a consolidation of Monk's genius into a perfect moment where the stars all aligned. It made him a legend.

Glenn Rice said in the review for the BBC on the occasion of the re-release of the album in 2002 that 1962, the musician's glory days were over. Even so, Monk remained an inimitable pianist. By 1962, after twenty years, Monk was not so much ahead of the developments in jazz, "but rather at an angle", and so began the last phase of his career. Its beginning can be roughly traced back to this album. When you hear Monk's version of “Body & Soul”, “Just a Gigolo” or “Sweet & Lovely” on this album, it seems almost funny that he was once considered a radical modernist. Straight-up blues underpin almost anything, says Rice; the pointedly amateur technique is regularly reminiscent of the original James P. Johnson . "Monk's unique contribution to the music and Monk's Dream itself were based on these motifs, which merely expressed his crazy, avaricious presence and which he would never try to expand again after this recording."

Richard Cook and Brian Morton , who only gave the album three stars in their Penguin Guide to Jazz , expressed reservations about the album. Monk's interpretation of the standards cannot be immediately identified with the brittle lateral thinker genius of Monk's Blue Note and Riverside recordings. “Monk's Dream” and “Bye-Ya” are rather tame, and the changes in “Bolivar Blues” and “Five Spot Blues” show how much Monk turned to the mainstream without realizing it .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thelonious Monk's 'Monk's Dream': The Greatest Jazz Album Ever. All About Jazz, December 3, 2010, accessed February 8, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed February 10, 2020)
  3. ↑ a b Thelonious Monk's 'Monk's Dream': The Greatest Jazz Album Ever. All About Jazz, December 3, 2010, accessed February 10, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b Thomas Fitterling: Thelonious Monk. His life, his music, his records. Oreos, Waakirchen 1987, ISBN 3-923657-14-5 .
  5. ↑ The Thelonious Monk Quartet: Monk's Dream at Discogs
  6. ↑ The Thelonious Monk Quartet - Monk's Dream at Discogs
  7. ^ Review of the album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved February 11, 2020.
  8. ^ Glenn Rice: Thelonious Monk Monk's Dream Review. BBC, September 3, 2002, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Quoted from Cook / Morton, 1994, p. 915.