In 1962 Thelonious Monk began recording for Columbia Records,
a six-year relationship that saw the pianist and composer’s
stock rise on the basis of increased promotion, a series of
concert tours of Europe and Japan, and a cover story in Time
magazine. During this time Monk recorded in a variety
of formats, including solo work, his famous quartet, and some
larger groups. Monk seemed to like working best in a quartet
format, and the group he led from 1964 to 1968, featuring
bassist Larry Gales, drummer Ben Riley, and saxophonist Charlie
Rouse (who worked with Monk for 11 years, certainly one of
the longest associations in jazz history) was undeniably a
crack unit that became adept at bringing out many previously
unnoted elements in Monk’s best-known compositions.
It is usually noted that Monk didn’t write a lot of
new tunes during his Columbia period, and indeed in many ways
it was a period of consolidation for him. For one thing, he
was able to concentrate on his piano playing to a greater
extent, and there can be little doubt that his powers of improvisation
were as good as ever, perhaps even at their height during
this period. Then there is the matter of Charlie Rouse. Quite
frankly, many jazz listeners and writers have refused to take
him seriously or give him his due. Much like Hank Mobley in
Miles Davis’s band, Rouse suffered from following two
tenor sax players who had played with Monk and had subsequently
become the major tenor voices of their generation: Sonny Rollins
and John Coltrane. But Rouse not only proved to be a superb
interpreter of Monk’s music, he also provided an urbane,
sophisticated, and restrained post-bop style that took away
any possible association with Monk’s compositions as
mere novelties.
Now, thanks to an arrangement between Hyena Records and the
Thelonious Monk Estate, we will have the opportunity to hear
unreleased material from the Monk archives. The first of these,
issued on the Thelonious Records imprint, is Monk In Paris:
Live at the Olympia. Recorded March 7, 1965, it features
the quartet performing seven pieces in front of an appreciative
French audience. As expected, most of the titles here are
well-known Monk tunes: “Rhythm-A-Ning,” “I
Mean You,” “Well You Needn’t,” “Bright
Mississippi,” and, of course, “Epistrophy.”
There are also brief solo takes on “Body & Soul”
and “April In Paris.”
The level of these performances is consistently excellent,
much like Monk’s recorded work for Columbia. Quite possibly
people just got tired of hearing the quartet always sounding
its best, but the fact is that Monk was now able to perform
his music his way, and there was no earthly reason for him
not to do it. He’d worked damned hard writing this stuff
and getting any respect at all, and his contract with Columbia
meant much more money and stability in his life. In addition,
it was literally impossible for his music to be heard as something
completely surprising by the sixties, in part because the
“weird chords” and “angular playing”
that had so startled listeners initially had, by this time,
actually become part of the jazz lexicon. So what you get
on Monk In Paris is simply a flawless performance
by one of the most innovative talents in jazz—got a
problem with that?
Hyena and Thelonious Records provide even more, though, giving
us a bonus DVD disc that features a quartet performance recorded
in Oslo, Norway in April of 1966. The tag line “You
haven’t heard Monk until you’ve seen him”
is strangely true—it’s amazing to have the opportunity
to watch Monk’s carefully choose his notes, playing
cross-handed, stomping time with his foot, and getting up
from the piano to dance while Rouse plays his solo, and it
brings forth the sheer physicality of Monk’s music,
something that can get lost when you’re sitting back
listening to a recording with headphones on. Hopefully there
will be more of these goodies included with subsequent releases
from the Monk archives.
