Monk's Music

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Monk's Music
Studio album by Thelonious Monk

Publication
(s)

1957

Label (s) Riverside / OJC

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

6th

running time

48:30 (CD)

occupation

production

Orrin Keepnews

Studio (s)

Reeves Sound Studio, New York City

chronology
Thelonious Himself
(1957) 		Monk's Music Mulligan Meets Monk
(1957)
Template: Info box music album / maintenance / parameter error

Monk's Music is a jazz album by Thelonious Monk , recorded on June 25th and 26th, 1957 in New York City and released on Riverside Records .

The album

After working on April 16, 1957 with the young and promising tenor saxophonist of the jazz avant-garde at the time, John Coltrane ( Thelonious Himself (Riverside RLP 235) and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane , Jazzland J 946), Monk and Coltrane, accompanied by Wilbur Ware on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums, played in a long-lasting guest performance at the New York jazz club Five Spot , so that everyone harmonized with one another.

For the June session for Riverside , Monk contrasted the young musician with the old master of the tenor saxophone, Coleman Hawkins . The drummer Art Blakey later told Nat Hentoff about the bias and reserve of the two tenorists: “Of course Monk wrote all of the music, but Hawk had problems reading it; so he asked Monk to explain it to him. Monk said to him, 'You're the great Coleman Hawkins, right? You're the guy who invented the tenor sax, right? ' Hawk agreed, then Monk turned to Trane, 'You're the big Coltrane, right?' Trane blushed and mumbled, 'Aw ... I'm not that big.' Then Monk said to both of them: 'You play the saxophone, right?' They nodded. 'Well the music is in the horn. You two make that between you, and then you should be able to find her '”. The session on June 25, 1957 was accompanied by further difficulties; The whole band appeared, only Monk was missing. To pass the time and get used to it, Hawkins led the brass section with a simple blues theme; Alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce joined, followed by trumpeter Ray Copeland , Coltrane and again Hawk. The whole thing was then called Blues for Tomorrow and attributed to Gigi Gryce. When Monk finally appeared, only his newly written composition Crepuscule with Nellie was recorded in two takes on that day , but these were not considered ready for publication. Another attempt to record the piece was canceled.

The next day, when Monk was better prepared, the actual session took place; Only at the sixth attempt was Monk satisfied with the reception of Crepuscule with Nellie . Furthermore, several variants of Off Minor were created (Take 5 finally appears on the LP). Hawkins starts with the first solo and tries to intimidate the young Coltrane. Hawkins' biographer Teddy Doering describes the rivalry between the two saxophonists: It takes several tracks before Trane regains his self-confidence. And then Hawkins is the one who is impressed, as is particularly evident in Well You Needn't and the closing Ruby My Dear (quartet), because Hawkins uses some typical Coltrane phrases from those years. Otherwise, this last piece is fully in the ballad art of Hawkins, tender and soulful, but also awe-inspiring, with very sensitive accompanying chords from Monk.

Rating of the album

Monk's Music is one of the essential albums of Thelonious Monk's creative phase when he was under contract with Orrin Keepnews' Riverside Records from 1955 to 1961 , the most profitable period in the pianist's work. Richard Cook and Brian Morton, who gave the album the top grade in their The Penguin Guide to Jazz , call the June session “one of the best sounding sessions” of the pianist and one of the most challenging records he has ever made with wind instruments . The extraordinary atmosphere of the session is emphasized by the a cappella version of Abide with Me , a Christian hymn by the Englishman William Henry Monk (1823–1889), which is played only by the winds. Cook & Morton also note critically that Hawkins occasionally has problems finding his way into Monk's music; therefore it sometimes seems as if the six musicians are playing “with” Monk instead of “with” him. But the atmosphere of the session is fascinating; and Monk play with all his authority.

Rolling Stone magazine voted the album at number 41 in its 2013 list of The 100 Best Jazz Albums .

Editorial notes

The album was released as an LP by Riverside (R 242). Alternative takes of Epistrophy and Off Minor were released on the album Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane . The CD reissue was made under the numbers OJC20 039-2 or as OJC20 084-2 in an expanded form. The recordings were also included in the 15-CD edition Monk: The Complete Riverside Recordings (Riverside RCD-022-2).

The Blues for Tomorrow , recorded without Monk, appeared on the Riverside anthology of the same name (RLP 243 / OJC 030), which also contains titles by Herbie Mann , Sonny Rollins , Mundell Lowe and Bobby Jaspar .

The titles

(Riverside R 242 - Original LP edition / OJC 084)

  1. Abide with Me ( William Henry Monk )
  2. Well you needn't
  3. Ruby My Dear
  4. Off minor
  5. Epistrophy
  6. Crepuscule with Nellie

(OJC CD 20 084-2 CD new edition)

  1. Abide with Me 0:51
  2. Well, You Needn't 11:24
  3. Ruby, My Dear 5:26
  4. Off Minor (take 5) 5:07
  5. Off Minor (take 4) 5:13
  6. Epistrophy 10:45
  7. Crepuscule with Nellie (take 6) 4:37
  8. Crepuscule with Nellie (take 4 & 5) 4:46

All tracks (except the first) were composed by Monk.

literature

Web links

  • Ben Ratliff: Monk's Music. Pitchfork, March 12, 2017, accessed February 12, 2020 .

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ cf. Filtgen / Auserbauer, p. 96 f.
  2. ↑ cf. Doering, p. 178.
  3. ↑ Nat Hentoff: Jazz Is . Quoted from Doering, p. 178.
  4. ^ Monk discography
  5. ↑ cf. Doering, p. 179.
  6. ↑ The Riverside era began with the trio album Monk Plays Ellington (R 201), recorded in July 1955; it ended in 1961 with the live album Monk in Italy (RLP 9443). Then Monk signed a record deal with Columbia Records , for which the 1962 album Monk's Dream was created.
  7. ↑ cf. Cook & Morton, 1993, p. 913.
  8. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  9. ↑ The title is spelled incorrectly “Crep e scule” - also in the liner notes for the LP
  10. ↑ On the CD the composition is attributed to Thelonious Monk