Underground (album)

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Underground
Studio album by Thelonious Monk

Publication
(s)

1968

Label (s) Columbia

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

7th

running time

37:23

occupation

production

Teo Macero

Studio (s)

Reeves Sound Studio, New York City

chronology
Straight, No Chaser
(1967) 		Underground Monk's Blues
(1968)
Template: Info box music album / maintenance / parameter error

Underground is a jazz album by Thelonious Monk , recorded in New York City in 1967/68 and released on Columbia Records .

The album

Underground is one of the albums from Monk's later creative phase. It was the last album that introduced new compositions by Monk and the last album of his quartet recorded in the studio. The album contains four new compositions. These are presented in different combo constellations : In addition to three pieces from the regular Thelonious Monk Quartet, the original album included three pieces for piano trio ( Easy Street ) and one piece by the trio with singer Jon Hendricks ( In Walked Bud ). This track is the only Monk song sung that has ever appeared on one of Monk's own albums. It happened by chance - Hendricks was there for the studio recording, and Monk insisted he record. However, his voice was not well arranged on that day and his text also seems trite in places.

The recordings took place during three sessions on December 14th and 21st, 1967 and on February 14th, 1968; the last session had to be without Rouse, since his father had died. The original album was heavily edited by producer Teo Macero (as the comparison with the new edition of Legacy / Columbia 2003 shows): Green Chimneys was cut from 13 to 9 minutes, Ugly Beauty from 10:45 to 7 minutes; essentially the solos of bass and drums were cut out. 5 of the recorded titles were not used at all.

As sales of Monk's previous albums continued to decline, the Columbia marketing department planned to give Monk a different image and make him an "icon for the young generation": The elaborately produced photo, a work from the studio of Steve Horn ( * 1932) and Norman Griner (1933–2004), shows Monk playing at the piano as a fighter of the Resistance with a rapid-fire rifle slung around his neck . The group's press release on the album said: "Now, in 1968, when rock music and psychedelics have spurred the imagination of young Americans, Thelonious Monk has once again become an underground hero, this time as the oracle of the new underground." The album cover actually attracted attention ; it won a Grammy award.

Impact history

The album was not available for a long time, as Columbia had been focusing exclusively on electric jazz since 1973 . Some fans criticized Monk's Columbia output, and especially this album, as an infusion or imitation of earlier material. The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz also came to the conclusion in 1994 that the most original thing about the album is the cover, with which Columbia probably wanted to ingratiate itself with a younger audience. Otherwise, the album is one of the weakest of the Columbia phase.

The 2003 version contains all recordings of the underground sessions, including uncut versions. The album allows you to experience how Monk's classical quartet developed and interpreted its pieces. In his liner notes , Peter Keepnews writes that it is “an encouraging burst of creativity by a musical genius”.

The titles

LP (Columbia CS 9632)

  1. "Thelonious"
  2. "Ugly Beauty"
  3. "Raise Four"
  4. "Boo Boo's Birthday"
  5. "Easy Street"
  6. "Green Chimneys"
  7. "In Walked Bud"

CD reissue (Sony COL CD 513359-2)

  1. "Thelonious" (take 1) 3:17
  2. "Ugly Beauty" (take 5) 10:45
  3. "Raise Four" 7:00
  4. "Boo Boo's Birthday" (take 11) 5:56
  5. "Easy Street" 7:50
  6. "Green Chimneys" 13:10
  7. "In Walked Bud" 6:48
  8. "Ugly Beauty" (take 4) 7:37
  9. "Boo Boo's Birthday" (take 2) 5:34
  10. "Thelonious" (take 3) 3:10

All the tracks were composed by Monk.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ and at the same time the first Columbia album to contain exclusively new pieces
  2. ↑ Afterwards only recordings were made with larger ensembles in the studio; From 1969 to 1972 there are still some live recordings and a trio recording from London. See Thelonious Monk Discography
  3. ↑ a b c d Fred Kaplan: Lost in Production Review of the 2003 edition
  4. ^ A b c Robin Kelley Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. New York: The Free Press 2009, p. 394
  5. ↑ Michael Cuscuna : Thelonious Monk's Underground: The Story Behind the Cover. Daily Jazz Gazette (Mosaic Records), accessed February 29, 2020 .
  6. ↑ after Justin Hall, Th. S. Monk ( Memento of December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Web links