Monk Reissues Due in August

Four Columbia-era Thelonious Monk albums will be reissued August 19: Underground, Solo Monk, Criss-Cross and It’s Monk Time. These discs are stone-cold classics and it’s about time they get the 21st century reissue treatment. The last time these albums were issued on CD each had the “Columbia Jazz Masterpieces” logo on its cover, and any music listener worth his or her pair of Sennheiser HD 580 headphones can tell you: that means a disc is going to sound a little bit hurting.

But that was roughly ten years ago and reissuing has come oh so very far since then. We can rebuild these treasured discs. We have the technology to make them better than they sounded before. We have the capability to include tracks heretofore unissued. And each of these Monk discs will include three bonus tracks, except for Solo Monk, which carries an extra nine cuts not included on the original LP. Track lists follow.