Solo Monk [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster]

Performer: Thelonious Monk
Producer: Teo Macero; Orrin Keepnews (Reissue)
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Solo performer: Thelonious Monk (piano). Recorded between October 31, 1964 and February 23, 1965. Originally released on Columbia (9149). Includes liner notes by Martin Williams, Peter Keepnews. Personnel: Thelonious Monk (piano). Liner Note Authors: Peter Keepnews; Martin Williams ; Orrin Keepnews. Recording information: 10/31/1964-03/02/1965. Photographer: Don Hunstein. From the virtuosic stride of Art Tatum to Sun Ra's brand of outer-limits logic, these sides read like a holistic jazz piano guide. Recorded during a 1964 run at California's "It Club," the performances contained herein offer an intensely personal experience of the "mad genius" alone at the keyboard. Most of the cuts clock in at less than three or four minutes. More than half of this material is standards, the Tin Pan Alley of Monk's youth. "Dinah" is a sweet 1925'er, rendered in fairly straight fashion. Monk's percussive emphasis gives his bass notes the oom-pah of a tuba as his right-hand dances gaily through the golden melody. "Ruby My Dear" is a lovely ballad, given an almost unsettling spaciousness here. The improvisation is relatively spare, with several rounds of the melody grounded in heavily-planted voicings and occasional lead-ins. "Monk's Point" has the simple insistency of many other Monk blues tunes, his left and right hands having a grand time tossing the spotlight back and forth in the solo. Thelonious Monk made a total of six solo piano recordings in his lifetime. The first three were between 1954-1959 for the Riverside label and its affiliates, two were for Alfred Lion's Black Lion label very late in his career, and Solo Monk was in 1964 and 1965 recorded mainly out West while on tour. As with Legacy's other reissues, Solo Monk is a deluxe package for a fair price. Here are the original 12 tunes comprised of four originals and eight standards as well as nine really alternate takes. In addition, there is a recording here of his little-known or -played composition "North of the Sunset." Monk's solo recordings always stood in stark contrast to his ensemble works; the voice here is less strident and dissonant in that he plays against a less-varied set of tonalities, and the solo pianist has the opportunity to sing through the instrument because it is not accountable to any other player. The beauty of his "Sweet 'n' Lovely," or the old standard "I Should Care," are nearly unbearable. His read of "These Foolish Things" is fraught with some perilously large chord voicings that stray into other key signatures, and his two takes of "Ruby My Dear" included here are finer than any he recorded previously. This is perhaps the solo piano record to have by Monk. ~ Thom Jurek

Thelonious Monk, underappreciated at the beginning of his career in the 1940s, was eventually recognized as one of the most brilliant figures in modern jazz, with a piano and compositional style that began in a classic stride and then veered off, gloriously, into the stratosphere. In contrast to the more athletic exploits of many beboppers, Monk's idiosyncratic playing was filled with stark contrasts of rhythm, space, and harmony, as if he were carefully unveiling some ancient wisdom. His death in 1982 left a void in jazz that could never be filled. However, Monk's songs live on in his remarkable recordings, and his influence is continually present in the work of hundreds of contemporary musicians.

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