What do you do if you are the son of one of the most iconic
jazz figures of the last half of the 20th century, and you
are a musician and composer to boot? You could look for another
line of work, or you could seek to differentiate yourself
at every turn from your famous father. You could continue
to work in the same vein. Or you could take the hardest path
there is—you could simply be yourself. That is the path
that T.S. Monk has taken, and it has paid off well in terms
of artistic achievement.
Since the mid-1980s, Monk led his own group, turning it
into a premier hard/post-bop band as well as a platform for
young composers. Through a series of Blue Note albums in the
late ‘80s and early ‘90s the T.S. Monk Sextet
introduced some highly talented players and composers. That’s
still the case on his latest release, Higher Ground.
In fact, a couple musicians on the new CD (tenor sax &
reed player Willie Williams and alto player Bobby Porcelli)
have been with Monk since 1992’s Take One,
while others (pianist Ray Gallon) are of newer vintage, having
joined his group for the 1999 release Crosstalk.
The relative stability of the group allows for a recording
that sounds fresh and spontaneous yet somehow familiar.
That familiarity comes, in part, from horn arrangements that
bring a big band feel to the septet. Even though Monk makes
use of funk rhythms, programmed beats, and some smooth sounds,
the music is never too far removed from its hard bop roots.
Donald Brown’s “Girl Watchin’,” for
example, has a funky beat and electric piano breaks, but the
solos could have come from a group led by Horace Silver or
Art Blakey. Winston Byrd offers a trumpet solo that is right
out of the hard bop/soul jazz school, quoting the “Sailor’s
Hornpipe”, and then Porcelli comes in with a bright
alto statement that instantly brings Cannonball Adderley to
mind. This is jazz that can stimulate the booty and the mind
simultaneously, a rare and potent combination.
The Cedar Walton composition “Mosaic” is given
an outrageous vocalese turn by guest vocalist Miles Griffith,
combining the scat and vocalese approaches of Dizzy Gillespie,
Eddie Jefferson, and Louis Armstrong. The group swings in
overdrive, with the horn line playing tight unison passages
along with Griffith. Throughout Higher Ground there are touches
of humor that make the music accessible to all listeners,
even as the playing and composing maintain a very advanced
level.
There are plenty of compositional contributions from the
band members that keep the music varied and interesting. Bobby
Porcelli composed the album’s opener, “Haristocracy.”
Pianist Gallon offers the ballad “Missing Line,”
which features some piano playing reminiscent of the elder
Thelonious Monk while the horn arrangements sound like something
Thad Jones might have come up with. Gallon’s other piece,
“Craw-Daddy” couldn’t be more different,
conjuring images of a night spent on Bourbon Street, or perhaps
a Tony Rome movie. Byrd offers a growling, plunger-muted trumpet
solo and Gallon plays blues-infested licks punctuated by a
discordant horn section. Byrd offers up “Ladera Heights,”
a smooth concoction that seems to dwell somewhere between
Grover Washington and Steely Dan. Tenor sax man Willie Williams’
“Millenium Dance” closes the album with a genre-defying
beauty that seems to reference both the past and future of
jazz and improvised music. In addition to these originals,
there is also a fine arrangement of Ray Bryant’s “Cubano
Chant” that introduces the Latin element to the band’s
sound, but still there is an indefinable “something”
that makes everything the group does its own.
Through it all, T.S. Monk drives the band along with his
lively, energetic drum work. Every bit as comfortable with
a fierce bop tempo as a laid back soul or driving funk rhythm,
Monk has truly mastered his instrument and, with Higher
Ground, it seems that he has also mastered his own musical
universe, creating a sound that is uniquely his own. Confident
enough to draw on jazz music’s immense history (as well
as his own family heritage) while making a musical statement
that is relevant to today’s listener, T.S. Monk has
produced what looks to be one of the year’s best albums.
