One of Monk’s greatest collaborators was Milt Jackson, and their work together on these Blue Notes is in a category of one. A couple of “concertos” with the piano in the midst of horns like “‘Round Midnight” and “Thelonious” remain compelling and unique to the first era. (Fortunately, usually the piano solos are the longest and they are always the best.) Some of the hardest Monk tunes are from this era, and several of them would never return in Monk’s book. While not all the horn players are that good, everybody gets solo time. Monk’s first studio tracks as a leader are short, pithy, and packed with information. They are some of the most crucial 78s ever recorded but I rarely return to their raw wonder, with the notable exception of the bonafide masterpiece “Carolina Moon.” If I discover an experienced musician hasn’t heard “Carolina Moon,” I can’t resist stopping the conversation and cueing it up.Īs a set, these have the weakest performances in the Monk canon. Apparently Lorraine was the one who gave Monk the sobriquet, “The High Priest.” Jazz buffs know this progression intimately and can debate the pros and cons of each era with flair.īlue Note: The person who got Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff interested in Monk was Lorraine Gordon (then Lorraine Lion and married to Alfred), who still hangs out at her joint the Village Vanguard a couple of times a week and celebrates her 95th birthday on Sunday.
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The rich discography mostly divides neatly into label: Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Columbia, and Black Lion. What follows is a ramble though the underbrush of musicianly detail, stuff I thought about while working on the general audience essay. My New Yorker Culture Desk essay “ Think of Monk” is a well-edited aerial view.