Thelonious Monk: Palo Alto (Impulse!/Sony)
The back story makes this album irresistible even before you’ve listened to it: In 1968, a 16-year-old jazz fan at Palo Alto High School in … Read More “Thelonious Monk: Palo Alto (Impulse!/Sony)”
Reviews
Miles Okazaki: Work: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Monk, Volumes 1-6 (Miles Okazaki)
“Exhaustive” is certainly a word that comes to mind for Work. Miles Okazaki was armed only with his solo guitar when he recorded all 70 known compositions by Thelonious Monk (70 being the number included in Steve Cardenas and Don Sickler’s Thelonious Monk Fakebook). It’s an undertaking of such ambition, even Monk never got there: … Read More “Miles Okazaki: Work: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Monk, Volumes 1-6 (Miles Okazaki)”
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Live Review: Monk and Dizzy Centennial Concerts
Jason Moran’s approach to the role of artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center has been suspiciously similar to his approach to the role of pianist, composer and bandleader: to mediate a dialogue between the music’s history and its cutting-edge present. That has often meant bringing in the elder statesmen along with the rising … Read More “Live Review: Monk and Dizzy Centennial Concerts”
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Thelonious Monk: Paris 1969
This odd, frayed, faded document, newly unearthed, may make you cry, sometimes from heartbreak, sometimes from joy. Thelonious Monk was only 52 in 1969, and had another 12 years to live. But in terms of his artistic life, he was near the end. At the Salle Pleyel in Paris, on Dec. 15, 1969, the flame … Read More “Thelonious Monk: Paris 1969”
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Thelonious Monk: Newport ’59
Legend has it that a good piano inspired Thelonious Monk’s 1957 performance at Carnegie Hall with John Coltrane, a date that was famously unearthed and released on Blue Note in 2005. The 88s provided for the Newport Jazz Festival two years later surely weren’t bad either. This set, from that evening, begins with a take … Read More “Thelonious Monk: Newport ’59”
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Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley
Robin D.G. Kelley’s new biography debunks many a myth about Thelonious Monk and brings the man and his music into sharp focus
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