Home » Jazz Articles » Building a Jazz Library » Thelonious Monk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Of Deep A...
Thelonious Monk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Of Deep And Staggering Genius
Courtesy David Redfern
The best thing about jazz is that it makes a person appreciate freedom. Jazz and freedom go hand in hand. That’s all there is to tell about that. That explains it. Just think about it and you’ll dig it.
—Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
piano1917 - 1982
During his lifetime, however, the course of Monk's career was as craggy as the contours of his music. Things started well in 1947, when
Alfred Lion
producer1908 - 1987
Orrin Keepnews
producer1923 - 2015
But by 1957, Monk's time had finally arrived. Reviewers placed him in what Keepnews called "the automatic five-star category," and in 1961, Columbia lured Monk from Riverside with a deal rumoured to be almost as valuable as the one they had given to
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
Through all of this, Monk continued to record great music, though his composing output slowed up from the mid 1960s onwards, with most albums typically containing just one new piece. As one of his obituarists observed, Monk, like the painter Paul Cézanne with his ceaseless studies of Mont St Victoire, felt no need to find fresh inspiration for his muse. He was happy to dig deep into what he already had, finding new perspectives and possibilities within it.
By the late 1970s, Monk had stopped performing. Beset by longstanding mental health issues beyond contemporary diagnosis and treatment, and which by the turn of the decade had reduced him to near catatonia, Monk moved from Manhattan into the New Jersey home of his longtime benefactor, the Rothschild heiress Baroness Pannonica De Koenigswarter. He emerged only for neighbourhood walkabouts, and eventually stopped even leaving his room. On 5 February 1982, Monk suffered a massive stroke and passed twelve days later. He was only 64 years old.
A reluctant interviewee with a penchant for epigrams—"There ain't no wrong notes on the piano," "Silence is the loudest noise," "Everybody is a genius at being themselves"—Monk was, in contemporary parlance, a "race man," that is, he believed in the equality of all races and was angered by the mistreatment of blacks by whites. And, at a time when many musicians were afraid to say as much for fear of losing their white audience, Monk did not shy away from the issue. This, along with his music, ensures his ongoing relevance. (Monk was his own man in his social views as much as his music. "When I was a kid," he once said to a journalist, "some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up").
In order to draw attention to some of the lesser-known treasures in Monk's discography, this Alternative Top Ten Albums selection excludes all his own-name albums for Blue Note, Prestige and Riverside, as well as the widely celebrated albums he made as a sideman with
Art Blakey
drums1919 - 1990
"
data-original-title="" title="">The Jazz Messengers and with Miles Davis. Monk's Columbia years are often, wrongly, written off as uneventful, and three of the best of his Columbia albums are included here. The discs are listed in chronological order. Hopefully, you will find one or two that have so far escaped your attention. 
Thelonious MonkAfter Hours At Minton's
Definitive, recorded 1941, released 2001
After Hours At Minton's was recorded at New York's bop crucible by the far-sighted jazz fiend Jerry Newman, who schlepped an acetate-cutting machine there on a succession of nights in late spring 1941. A student at Columbia University, Newman made the recordings to be broadcast on the university's Radio Club programme on WKCR. The twelve tracks on the album are not to be confused with another package of Minton's material, also recorded by Newman, which showcases guitarist
Charlie Christian
guitar, electric1916 - 1942
Roy Eldridge
trumpet1911 - 1989
Hot Lips Page
trumpet1908 - 1954
Herbie Fields
b.1919Al Sears
b.1910
Kenny Clarke
drums1914 - 1985
Charlie Parker & Dizzy GillespieBird & Diz
Mercury, 1952
Another crucial slice of jazz history, Bird & Diz is the only known occasion when three of the founding fathers of bop—Monk,
Charlie Parker
saxophone, alto1920 - 1955
Dizzy Gillespie
trumpet1917 - 1993
Norman Granz
b.1918
Curly Russell
bass, acoustic1917 - 1986
Buddy Rich
drums1917 - 1987
Stan Getz
saxophone, tenor1927 - 1991
Thelonious MonkPiano Solo
Swing, recorded 1954, reissued 2017
Piano Solo , Monk's first solo album, was recorded at the Club D'Essai in Paris for a radio broadcast. In the first of the horde of spelling errors that would pursue Monk throughout and beyond his life, it was credited by the French label Swing to Theolonious Monk (at least the typographer had the excuse of not having English as a first language). Sony Legacy's 2017 CD edition retitled it Paris 1954. There are seven Monk originals and a cover of Jerome Kern's "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes." The material was remastered by Sony and bundled with five tracks which Monk had recorded a few days before the D'Essai gig, in concert at the Salle Pleyel concert hall, where he was accompanied by bassist Jean-Marie Ingrand and drummer
Jean-Louis Viale
b.1933
Gigi Gryce The Gigi Gryce Orchestra / The Gigi Gryce Quartet
Signal, 1955
In 1957, alto saxophonist, composer and arranger
Gigi Gryce
saxophone1927 - 1983
Horace Silver
piano1928 - 2014
Percy Heath
bass, acoustic1923 - 2005
Art Blakey
drums1919 - 1990
Clark Terry With Thelonious Monk In Orbit
Riverside, 1958
Another great sideman session, In Orbit was recorded after trumpeter and flugelhornist
Clark Terry
trumpet1920 - 2015
Count Basie
piano1904 - 1984
Duke Ellington
piano1899 - 1974
Sam Jones
bass, acoustic1924 - 1981
Philly Joe Jones
drums1923 - 1985
Thelonious Monk Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Sam, recorded 1960, released 2017
New wave French film director Roger Vadim's Les Liaisons Dangereuses had a soundtrack which was custom recorded by Monk. The music was not released during Monk's lifetime and the tapes from the session were lost in the vaults until 2015. Two years later, during Monk's centennial year, Sam Records released them in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Estate. Vadim had wanted Monk to score new compositions and, after sending a rough cut of the film to him in New York in advance, flew to the city to supervise the recording, accompanied by French tenor saxophonist
Barney Wilen
saxophone, tenor1937 - 1996
Charlie Rouse
saxophone, tenor1924 - 1988
Sam Jones
bass, acoustic1924 - 1981
Art Taylor
drums1929 - 1995
Thelonious Monk M?nk
Gearbox, recorded 1963, released 2018
British audiophile label Gearbox came up with a blinder after it acquired the mastertape for this previously unissued album from the person who rescued it from a builder's skip in Copenhagen, where Monk's Quartet had recorded it at the Odd Fellow Pal?et in early 1963. Despite being monophonic, M?nk's sound is among the best of Monk's live albums, the original analogue tape having been mixed and mastered by Gearbox on state of the art analogue equipment, with no digital in the path at any stage. The performance, by what some regard as Monk's strongest quartet lineup—tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist
John Ore
bass1933 - 2014
Frankie Dunlop
drums1928 - 2014
Monk Live At The It Club Complete
Columbia, recorded 1964, released 1998
This double CD, recorded at San Francisco's It Club, may be the most important of Monk's live albums (another double, Columbia's Live At The Jazz Workshop Complete, also from 1964, runs it a close second). It is not the gritty performances—by Monk, Charlie Rouse, bassist
Larry Gales
bass1936 - 1995
Ben Riley
drums1933 - 2017
Teo Macero
producer1925 - 2008
Thelonious Monk Underground
Columbia, 1968
Monk's last quartet album with Charlie Rouse and the last small-group album Monk recorded in the US. Five decades on, it is among the most enduring studio albums he made for Columbia, not least because it includes four previously unrecorded original compositions—"Raise Four," "Ugly Beauty," "Boo Boo's Birthday," "Green Chimneys"—the most on any Monk album for fifteen years. Don't be put off by the sleeve art, which, in a clunky attempt to co-opt the youth zeitgeist, showed Monk sitting at a beat-up upright with a rifle slung across his shoulder and a woman holding a machine gun in the background. The same year, Columbia had booked Monk into rock venues such as San Francisco's Carousel Ballroom and New York's Fillmore East. But, as he unfailingly did throughout his life, Monk resisted any pressure to compromise his artistic integrity and the marketing strategy came to nothing.
Thelonious Sphere MonkMonk's Blues
Columbia, 1969
Monk's final release on Columbia before the label dropped him. The album was recorded in Los Angeles with a sixteen-piece orchestra arranged and conducted by
Oliver Nelson
saxophone1932 - 1975
Tags
Building a Jazz Library
Thelonious Monk
Chris May
Alfred Lion
Bob Weinstock
orrin keepnews
Miles Davis
Art Blakey
Jazz Messengers
Charlie Christian
Roy Eldridge
Hot Lips Page
Herbie Fields
Al Sears
Nick Fenton
Kenny Clarke
Charlie Parker
Dizzy Gillespie
Norman Granz
Curly Russell
Buddy Rich
Stan Getz
Jean-Marie Ingrand
Jean-Louis Viale
Gigi Gryce
Horace Silver
Percy Heath
Clark Terry
Count Basie
duke ellington
Sam Jones
Philly Joe Jones
Barney Wilen
Charlie Rouse
Art Taylor
John Ore
Frank Dunlop
Larry Gales
Ben Riley
Teo Macero
Oliver Nelson
Comments
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Support All About Jazz
All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.
Buy Now
