THELONIOUS MONK
Thelonious Monk
Prestige
Monk is usually cited as one of the founding
fathers of bebop, and indeed he was present and absorbed
the harmonic lessons of bop. But he went beyond that, both
in his use of more dissonant harmonies and in his pianistic
style, which combined elements from bop, modern jazz, swing,
and earlier stride and Tin Pan Alley piano styles. In short,
Monk was the total package, and the newly RVG edition of
this Prestige release is a near-perfect Monk recording,
offering up bracing versions of many of his most famous
compositions while they were still fresh and allowing the
listener to hear Monk’s unadorned piano style. In
later years, particulary as he gained recognition and recorded
for Columbia in the 1960s, Monk rearranged and re-recorded
these tunes many times, and often they achieved a more polished
veneer that went against the grain of Monk’s compositional
style and made it easy to forget just how revolutionary
these compositions were when they were first hatched.
The first two tracks here come from the last,
chronologically, of three sessions included here. The lengthy
rendition of “Blue Monk” that leads off the
CD finds Monk in the company of bassist Percy Heath and
drummer Art Blakey.Monk’s piano work is a master class
in two-handed piano technique, as Monk plays clusters of
harmonies with his right hand, punctuaing with left hand
notes, then bringing his left hand up participate in a melodic
run. Bud Powell’s influence is certainly evident,
as Monk’s solo contains flashes of Powell’s
deft runs, but it’s frequently more Powell’s
spirit that comes across than any actual tendency for the
two pianists, who were close friends, to sound alike. Listening
to Thelonious Monk it’s very easy to hear
the two pianists as complimentary to each other, each completing
the other’s pianistic style to create an organic whole.
It’s been said that Powell’s
extensive use of the right hand to play technically difficult
melodic improvisations while keeping the left hand as a
minimal comping instrument led to the piano being on the
same plane as front line horns in modern jazz. That makes
sense, but listening to Monk here, one can’t help
but feel that he was able to make his piano the equal of
any horn player while still maintaiing the instrument’s
more orchestral possibilities. \
The other two sessions included here are
both from late 1952. Both feature Gary Mapp on bass, while
Blakey and Max Roach alternate on drums. Neither Mapp nor
Heath makes much impression on these sessions—it’s
all about Monk and the interaction between Monk and the
two amazing drummers. Thelonious Monk is an essential
Monk disc and should have a place in the collection of any
serious modern jazz fan.
