The title track of this masterwork was so difficult to play, even for an all-star quintet featuring Sonny Rollins and Max Roach, that it was spliced from multiple takes. But Ellington is a touchstone for Monk, and this recording makes the debt concrete, especially when Monk moves from rubato mood to stride improvisation on “Solitude.” This all-Ellington program and the standards-based Unique Thelonious Monk lack the jolt of Monk’s originals. When Monk began his long and fruitful association with Riverside, producer Orrin Keepnews steered him toward repertoire aimed at a broader audience. But Monk’s transitional dates for Prestige showcase brilliant work and continue his progress with a steady stream of memorable tunes, including “Little Rootie Tootie,” “Reflections,” and the audaciously loose-limbed “Bemsha Swing.” Greater exposure through associations with Riverside and Columbia awaited.
Vibraphonist Milt Jackson heightens the percussive potential, as Monk presentsĮven more radical tunes-”Misterioso,” “Epistrophy,” “Straight, No Chaser,” and the ingeniously accented “Criss- Cross.” With a few dozen tunes, jazz’s future was thrown gloriously askew.Ī trumped-up drug conviction and draconian cabaret laws would rob Monk of his ability to perform in New York for several years following the Blue Note sessions. Though his band concept would develop further, the essential elements-rhythmic displacements, startling silences, clotted chords, flat-fingered runs, and spiky dissonances-are all here. With “Ruby, My Dear,” “In Walked Bud,” and “Round Midnight,” the latter of which finds piano leading and horns comping, he codified nascent classics. With “Thelonious,” Monk crafted something innovative and satisfying from just two notes. It would take another decade for the public and even the critical establishment to be won over by the magnitude of Monk’s music, but by 1947, many musicians knew. But the master takes, of songs early on and albums later, make complete statements-chapters in a relatively brief yet devastatingly powerful story that defines and transcends modern jazz.
Such investment pays dividends because alternate takes, illustrative but annoying in some other sets, consistently fascinate when it comes to Monk: they offer fine details about his simultaneous construction and deconstruction, his improvisation as composition (and vice versa). Yet with both, you’d have five versions of “Well, You Needn’t,” one of the signature tunes that earn Monk status as one of jazz’s greatest composers. Well, you needn’t get the four-disc Complete Blue Note Recordings or the 15-disc Complete Riverside Recordings.
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