Thelonious Monk with Steve Lacy in Philadelphia 1960
| Thelonious Monk with Steve Lacy in Philadelphia 1960 | ||||
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| Live album by Thelonious Monk | ||||
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| Label (s) | Rare live recordings | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
15th |
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running time |
1:16:19 |
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Thelonious Monk with Steve Lacy in Philadelphia 1960 is a posthumously published compilation album by Thelonious Monk . The recordings, which were made in various line-ups between 1948 and 1960, were released as a compact disc on Rare Live Records in 2006 . Central to the album are the tracks “Evidence”, “ Straight No Chaser ” and “Rhythm-A-Ning”, which are among the few sound documents on which Steve Lacy played with Monk in a smaller ensemble.
background
Steve Lacy and his relationship with Thelonious Monk
Steve Lacy had already recorded an album with Mal Waldron , Buell Neidlinger and Elvin Jones on the Prestige label in 1959 exclusively with Thelonious Monk's compositions ( Reflections: Steve Lacy Plays Thelonious Mon ). Lacy has always had an affinity for Monk's music, wrote Scott Yanow . In 1960 he was able to persuade Monk to hire him as a sideman for 16 weeks. For a brief season in 1960, Lacy's high-pitched soprano sound was "an ideal foil for Monk's dark, bumpy ruminations," wrote John Fordham.
The album contains a concert recording in which the Monk Quartet (with Charlie Rouse , John Ore and Roy Haynes ) performed with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in Connie Mack Park in Philadelphia in 1960; they played the Monk compositions "Evidence", "Straight No Chaser" and "Rhythm-A-Ning".
In the early 1960s, the most regular formation Lacy played in was a quartet he formed with Roswell Rudd . Intended as a repertoire band, they soon decided to focus on a single composer, Thelonious Monk. In late 1963 he worked again with Thelonious Monk when he was a member of a big band that performed with him in New York, documented on Big Band and Quartet in Concert (1964).
In the early free jazz era, Monk's success in the 1960s was linked to the fact that Monk was considered an important influence on numerous younger musicians; There were homages to and interpretations of Monk's music by free jazz artists, initially Steve Lacy, Cecil Taylor , Eric Dolphy and Andrew Hill in particular , and then numerous European musicians.
The other recordings of the album
A concert recording from 1957 followed on the album, in which Monk played the tracks "Blue Monk", "Light Blue" and "Evidence" with Thad Jones , Charlie Rouse, John Ore and Billy Higgins . There is also a radio recording from New York City on February 16, 1948; it is the tracks "Just You, Just Me", " All The Things You Are " and "Suburban Eyes", in which Monk played with Idrees Sulieman , Curly Russell and Art Blakey . The next two tracks, "Off Minor" and " Well You Needn't, " were written on October 6, 1955 when the pianist appeared on Steve Allen's TV show with Art Farmer , Hank Mobley , Charles Mingus and Blakey . The album ends with the bonus tracks "Especially to You" and "Nobody Knows", two song numbers by the obscure vocalist Frankie Passions, accompanied by Monk and a quintet in which Idrees Sulieman (or Kenny Dorham or Ray Copeland ), Lucky Thompson ( or Charlie Rouse), Curly Russell and Art Blakey.
Track list
- Thelonious Monk with Steve Lacy in Philadelphia 1960 (RLR Records - RLR 88623)
- Live Broadcast, Philadelphia, March 3, 1960. Previously Unissued.
1 Announcement 0:30
2 Evidence 6:19
3 Announcement 0:20
4 Straight, No Chaser 7:53
5 Rhythm A Ning (incomplete) Into Closing Announcement by Louis Armstrong 4:39
- Concert, New York, August 1957.
6 Blue Monk 5:22
7 Light Blue 11:05
8 Evidence 11:46
- Broadcast, New York, February 16, 1948.
9 Just You, Just Me 4:53
10 All The Things You Are 5:55
11 Suburban Eyes 3:20
- The Steve Allen Show, New York, October 6, 1955. Previously Unissued.
12 Steve Allen Interviews Monk Into Off Minor 5:45
13 Well You Needn't 2:59
- Original Recordings for the Washington Label, New York, June 1950.
14 Especially to You 2:38
15 Nobody Knows (Nobody Cares) 2:52
reception
According to Hrayr Attarian, who reviewed the album on All About Jazz , the release of the archive finds is a disappointment. Initially, the Lacy / Monk group can only be experienced on three tracks out of a total of 15. “The rest is a collection of recordings from various programs and lost tapes, all of which show Thelonious Monk as a sideman and always in the background.” With the exception of three tracks from 1957, which sound acceptable, the author believes that the Sound quality on the rest of the CD is extremely poor. It is therefore very difficult to appreciate the virtuosity and talent of all the musicians named on the cover if you cannot even hear them properly. There are also a number of announcement-only tracks and an extremely boring Steve Allen interview with Monk. Overall, despite the Thelonious Monk recording, it's a huge disappointment due to the misleading title, poor sound quality, and poor planning.
Web links
- Listing of the album on Allmusic (English). Retrieved February 29, 2020.
Individual evidence
- ^ Review of the album Reflections at Allmusic (English). Retrieved February 29, 2020.
- ↑ See The Guinness encyclopedia of popular music, Volume 3 , ed. by Colin Larkin. Guinness Pub., 1995, p. 2383, or in Jazz: The Rough Guide , ed. by Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley , Chris Parker. Rough Guides, 1995, p. 368.
- ^ John Fordham: Jazz Heroes . Anova Books, 1998, p. 60
- ↑ In it, u. a. Henry Grimes , Billy Higgins , Bob Cunningham, and Denis Charles ; See Tom Lord, Jazz discography (online)
- ↑ Steve Lacy: Conversations , edited by Jason Weiss. Duke University Press 2006, p. 20
- ↑ Jeff Schwartz: Free Jazz: A Research and Information Guide . New York: Routledge, 2008 and Jürgen Arndt: Thelonious Monk and Free Jazz. Contributions to jazz research 11. Graz 2002
- ↑ Thelonious Monk with Steve Lacy in Philadelphia 1960 at Discogs
- ^ Thelonious Monk: In Philadelphia 1960 with Steve Lacy. All About Jazz, April 18, 2007, accessed March 1, 2020 .