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The mandatory Thelonious Monk Phase...

Tim Jones

Tim Jones

pfm Member
Having rediscovered an old Columbia "Best Of..." that I bought in a charity shop and then forgot about at some point in the 90s, I now can't stop listening. There is something here about quite riff-ish jazz that proceeds to fall slightly and deliberately apart and has a sense of humour about it in the process.

I've already bought "Monk's Dream", which I'm enjoying very much, but just wonder what releases others who know more about him would recommend.

This "Best" has his famous version of "Straight, No Chaser" which is a particular favourite - is it worth buying the whole album?

And, in a more general sense, it feels like there is the usual delineation between early, breakthrough material on Prestige or Riverside, and the later recordings. Any comments on that difference?

Thanks.
 
Having sampled across each period I'm of the view that there are no bad Monk phases or records and plenty of essential ones.

If I boiled it down to a core from the one's I've got I'd have

Genius of Modern music from the Blue Note period
Brilliant Corners from Riverside
Live with John Coltrane from Carnegie Hall as a later "lost" release
Solo Monk from CBS
Live at the It Club from CBS

I've not go anything from the Prestige years - almost certainty and oversight on my part.

I'm looking forward to what others recommend as I'm sure I've plenty of gaps in my collection. This feels like the start of a thread that could cost me a few quid.

I'd also recommend the recently published graphic novel "Monk!"

Monk!: Thelonious, Pannonica, and the Friendship Behind a Musical Revolution: AmazonSmile: Daoudi, Youssef: 9781626724341: Books
 
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His first recordings on Blue Note are essential, although the sound quality is of its time. Straight No Chaser first appears here.

Of the Riverside recordings I think Monk's Music is the best, and it features John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins.

I haven't heard many of the CBS albums. The received wisdom is that at CBS he was no longer working with top class sidemen, and that the performances are not up to the standard of his earlier work.

I do recommend the releases from the final sessions he recorded in London with Art Blakey and Al McKibbon.
 
Monk is unique within jazz in that he arrived perfectly formed and didn’t really progress at all, in fact the later stuff is mostly him playing the early stuff with different people or solo. As such there are two lines on the graph: innovation and originality dipping from a high at the start and a low at the end, and recording quality doing the reverse.

The Blue Note stuff is pretty rough (mainly 78 era) but is amazing musically, the Prestige/Riverside arguably the optimal crossing point on the graph, Columbia a little less energy but stunningly recorded and the end period on Black Lion etc really an old man noodling around passed glories.

This Columbia Original Album Series box is a bargain. Beyond that pick up the Blue Note Genius Of Modern Music and a good handful of the Riverside stuff. I’d have previously recommended the Riverside ‘All Monk’ box, but it seems to be long out of print. Be very wary of pirates, the market is absolutely flooded with shit, so don’t touch anything that is not obviously on the correct label (Blue Note, Columbia, Riverside) and check the publishing for UMG, CBS/Sony etc. All of the ‘eight classic albums on three CDs’ type things are pirates.
 
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@Tony L the first two results in your first link look like Pirates? This the kosher one: Straight, No Chaser / Underground / Criss-Cross / Monk's Dream / Solo Monk (Original Album Classics)
 
sideshowbob said:
Get this, it's one of the best things ever

https://www.discogs.com/release/3663118-Thelonious-Monk-The-Complete-Riverside-Recordings
Click to expand...
So is this!

https://www.discogs.com/release/2354128-Monk-Big-Band-And-Quartet-In-Concert

Basically the same material as the Town Hall concert but a wonderful stereo recording.

Also this... I can’t work out whether I love it because of or in spite of his apparent bad mood and intent to beat seven shades of shit out of a off-tune piano.
 
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Weekender said:
@Tony L the first two results in your first link look like Pirates? This the kosher one: Straight, No Chaser / Underground / Criss-Cross / Monk's Dream / Solo Monk (Original Album Classics) https://amzn.eu/d/bfirNjK
Click to expand...

That’s what I was trying to link to, I think I’ve corrected my link now. Can folk please buy from mine not the .eu one as I don’t have that monetised! I’ve only got co.uk which is annoying, it isn’t global like eBay.
 
Reiterating what has already been posted I guess but this is pretty easy.

In this order... Get all the Riversides. Get the two volumes of Genius Of Modern Music on Blue Note. Get the handful of releases he did for Prestige. Digest. Get everything else he did at your leisure.

There's lots of pleasure to be had in his later recordings but it's the pre-Columbia work that's absolutely essential.

If you want to delve more into his world Kelley's bio is extremely comprehensive:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1439190461/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
P.S. Monk was such a physical player, and he had such a physical presence, that he's one of the very few jazz musicians where watching him perform has helped me better understand his music.

Here he is on Polish TV in 1966. It doesn't get more jazz than this!

 
Brilliant Corners strikes me as one of Monk’s most compositionally advanced sets.

Everything with Coltrane.

Alone in San Francisco my favourite solo piano Monk (the late 80s CD sounds excellent).

The hardcore fan in me rates the earlier to mid period material as most essential and engaging, but I’m guilty of enjoying most of the Columbia period - it swings like hell.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1960) with Charlie Rouse, Art Taylor, Sam Jones plus Barney Wilen is a hidden gem.

Tim Jones said:
This "Best" has his famous version of "Straight, No Chaser" which is a particular favourite - is it worth buying the whole album?
Click to expand...

I think it’s one of his better Columbia LPs, although I have a soft spot for Monk’s Dream.

If you collect LPs you’ll also need US Stoughton style Prestige copies of Monk/Rollins and Monk by Monk/Rollins with Frank Foster - stunning sleeve design collaboration by Reid Miles and Andy Warhol.

I find there are moments of genius in so many of his albums. I’m thinking of something as uninteresting looking as the France’s Concert Evidence LP comprising of live material from 1963 to 1966 recorded for French radio. The last piece is a ten minute version of Jackie-ing, and Monk’s slowly disintegrating solo gradually making its way to the lowest notes on the keyboard is pure genius (sic) - and pure comedy.
 
Graham H said:
Alone in San Francisco my favourite solo piano Monk (the late 80s CD sounds excellent).


Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1960) with Charlie Rouse, Art Taylor, Sam Jones plus Barney Wilen is a hidden gem.
Click to expand...

Yes - I also like these two a lot...

PS If someone could change the thread title so his name is spelled correctly... thanks!
 
Marchbanks said:
PS If someone could change the thread title so his name is spelled correctly... thanks!
Click to expand...

An age old problem. The back of my recently acquired copy of Criss-Cross has a sticker correcting a similar typo...

NC05NTAxLmpwZWc.jpeg
 
Marchbanks said:
PS If someone could change the thread title so his name is spelled correctly... thanks!
Click to expand...
Thank you, whoever did it!

paulfromcamden said:
An age old problem. The back of my recently acquired copy of Criss-Cross has a sticker correcting a similar typo...

NC05NTAxLmpwZWc.jpeg
Click to expand...

That’s a fine, supportive record label, isn’t it! ‘We need to reprint the sleeves!’ ‘Nah, just put a sticker over it...’ ‘But it’ll show!’ ‘So...?’
 
Robin DG Kelley:.

Monk's distinctive sound, his approach to the piano, was deliberate, very thought-out. It was hard for Monk to play Monk, in fact. I was privy to the home recordings that Nellie and Nica [Monk's friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter] made of him practicing. You could hear in those rehearsal tapes how he methodically, laboriously developed those ideas. That blew my mind.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/03/the-secret-life-of-thelonious-monk/38128/

"It was hard for Monk to play Monk".

I think there's a temptation to assume that this stuff just flowed out of Monk instinctively almost like some kind of idiot savant but it does him a disservice not to recognise his intellect and the determination with which he applied it.
 
The only Monk I have is this:

OS01MjUxLmpwZWc.jpeg


It's pretty spiffy but I guess not having any Columbia LPs, I'm missing out.
 
A bit OT but anyway... In about 1976, Leeds University, I saw John Martyn with Danny Thompson playing bass. JM had a break to change a guitar string, share a smoke with the audience, or something, so to keep us entertained Danny T played a couple of choruses of Blue Monk and sang a little song about "the loneliest monk in the world". Does anyone know about this song? I've Googled but not found it. It wouldn't surprise me if was something he made up on the spot.
 
Monk is a total genius & all his records have merit. I love a lot of his live albums including The Town Hall & Black Hawk concerts. Just dive in. Charlie Rouse was probably his most consistent musician but basically everyone had to bend to his will.

He’s a unique musician in that he wrote a large number of standards early in his career & then perfected & refined them over time.

Lastly, the album covers…wow.
 
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