The romantic ballad Ask Me Now (july 1951), the blues Straight No Chaser (july 1951), Four in One (july 1951) and Criss Cross (july 1951).Ī quintet with French horn player Julius Watkins, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, Percy Heath on bass, was immortalized on the album Orchestral quality of Monk's piano playing.Ī piano quintet with Jackson on vibraphone, Sahib Shihab on alto sax, Blakey on drums, yielded That ambiguity would disappear if one could only appreciate the hidden On the other hand, the listener wasĭisoriented by the fragile, naked ambiguity of the music. On one hand, one could still hear elements of stride jazz,īoogie-woogie, blues, even nursery rhymes, although they were diluted inĪn anarchic patchwork of overtones. Monk's art was a calibrated balance of deconstruction and estrangement The ballad Monk's Mood (november 1947) for a trumpet-sax-piano quintet Įvidence (july 1948) and the bluesy Misterioso (july 1948) for a piano quartet with Milt Jackson on vibraphone. Well You Needn't (october 1947), Off Minor (october 1947) and the tender ballad Ruby My Dear (october 1947) for a trio (with Art Blakey on drums) Humph (october 1947) and Thelonious (october 1947), that exhibits an almost classical geometry while employing both silence and dissonance, for a piano sextet (Idrees Sulieman on trumpet, Danny Quebec West on alto sax, Billy Smith on tenor sax, Gene Ramey on bass, Art Blakey on drums) His recordings of his own compositions established a higher musical standard than jazz music was used to: It was a style that sounded outside the jazz tradition, not onlyĮccentric but also laconic, almost counterproductive in the way it emphasizedĪnd clustered chords instead of linear development. (in Coleman Hawkins' band that he had joined in 1944) I Mean You (1946) for Coleman Hawkins' band.ĥ2nd Street Theme (june 1945) became a classic of bebop when it was recorded by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.Īt the same time that his compositions were leaving a mark on the transition from swing to bebop, his piano style Were composed for the orchestra of Cootie Williams, Of jazz music but also the greatest composer of the bebop era.Įpistrophy (1942) and the immortal Round about Midnight (1944) Thelonious Monk (1917) was not only the most cerebral pianist to enter the history (Sorry, no ratings for compositions before 1953) Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane (1957), 5/10 Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins (1953), 6/10 ( Copyright © 1999-2019 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use) Thelonious Monk: biography, discography, review, ratings Rollins, meanwhile, taps into a mood not unlike his classic “Blue 7” from Saxophone Colossus, which he’d just recorded a few months before.The History of Jazz Music. But the centerpiece might be the long, slow blues “Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are,” where Monk’s spacious, economical pianism reveals a deep debt to late-’30s Count Basie. BRILLIANT CORNERS THELONIOUS MONK FULLThe solo piano number “I Surrender, Dear” brings Monk’s offbeat interpretive sense into full view. On most of the set, Rollins splits saxophone duties with altoist Ernie Henry, though trumpeter Clark Terry and bassist Paul Chambers come on board for the closing “Bemsha Swing.” Roach’s use of timpani on that track and Monk’s use of celeste on the ballad “Pannonica” speak to a pursuit of unusual tone colors and aesthetic left turns on the album. Bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Max Roach do their masterful rhythm section thing through it all. Soloists have no choice but to grip the rollercoaster tightly, but they uncover fascinating secrets along the way. But the music that emerges is still extraordinary: a strange and slow melody that stumbles upon itself before-surprise!-relaunching at twice the speed, only to grind to a near halt again for the next chorus. The story goes that the band played take after unsatisfactory take until producer Orrin Keepnews ended up splicing together a usable one. Look no further than the leadoff title track, “Brilliant Corners,” to hear the kinds of harmonic, rhythmic, and formal demands that Monk’s music could entail. There was something about Monk’s thorny writing that challenged tenor players and brought them closer to realizing their own visions as improvisers. Rollins had made a breakthrough sideman performance with Bud Powell in 1949, and a year or so after this 1956 session, Monk would form a brief but seismic alliance with another great emerging tenor of the time, John Coltrane. Brilliant Corners is one of just a few Monk recordings to feature the pianist-composer in a mentor role to Sonny Rollins, then an emerging tenor saxophone great.
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