Bye-Ya; Bolivar Blues; (October 31, 1962 - N.Y.)
Body and Soul (solo); Bright Mississippi; (November 1, 1962 -
N.Y.)
Monk's Dream; Just A Gigolo (solo); (November 2, 1962 - N.Y.)
Sweet and Lovely; Five Spot Blues; (November 6, 1962 - N.Y.)
Thelonious Monk - piano. Charlie Rouse - tenor. John Ore -
bass. Frankie Dunlop - drums.
I store my wines away from my liquors and my beer away from
both, so there's no fumbling when I go for what I want. In planning a jazz
programme - not a jazz record broadcast, but a real programme - I need to know
where the ingredients are, too: I don't classify my record library
alphabetically or numerically, but according to programme needs. If a piano
record is what feels right, I go to the piano record shelf, and everyone's there.
But not Monk. He's over somewhere else. Monk isn't a "pianist", Monk
is Monk. At the piano, he recalls Bix Beiderbecke testing the instrument, with
premonitions of Duke Ellington and James P. Johnson.
Monk is one of the handful of men who made modern jazz and
eventually made people like it. His admirers begin with Duke Ellington, Gerry
Mulligan, Clark Terry, Pee Wee Russell, Quincy Jones and George Shearing and go
on from there.
--Willis
Conover
Jazz has a handful of artists whose presence - in any capacity
- on a recording is prima facie evidence of that recording's value. Monk is
such an artist. And what his presence guarantees is the jazz mind complete with
humour. For Monk's music is, always has been and always will be, above all
else, fun.
--Ralph
J. Gleason
The single and durable impact of Thelonious Monk is due in
large part to the consistency of his integrity. Monk never dilutes his music.
He does not try to coax audiences. Like vital artists in all media, Monk simply
presents his music whole; and that approach, of course, reveals a great deal
more respect for one's audience than the more customary fashion of fawning.
Monk, moreover, is comparatively rare among jazzmen in that besides having
developed an incisively personal playing style, he has also built an equally
powerful and expressive body of work. There is, in sum, a concentrated
completeness in Monk the musician - as there is in most of his works.
--Nat
Hentoff
Thelonious Monk finds his musical language in the specific
techniques of jazz; the apparent simplicity of some of his work is deceptive,
for Monk is a virtuoso, a virtuoso of rhythm, of the unexpected in shading and
accent, and in the use of time, space and silence as aspects of musical
expression. I am convinced that Monk is the first great jazz composer after
Duke Ellington. He makes uncompromising emotional demands on a listener on
occasion, but he has the talent to involve us in his playing so that we seem to
be working things out together. Monk is what many jazzmen have been called and
fewer have actually been - an artist.
--Martin
Williams
.
MONK'S DREAM is Thelonious Monk's first recording in several
years. It has special significance here at CBS because it is his first
recording for us. It is filled with moments of great passion, deep thought and
conviction. Monk, one of the great artists of contemporary jazz, has set the
pattern for many musicians in the past. He continues to set the pattern for
future musicians.
His playing, like his composistions, is like no one else's in
the world. He paints gigantic, colourful pictures with sometimes very few
notes, then again with many. His improvised melodic lines remind one of
Picasso's paintings: flowing movement, rich textures, striking contrasts. His
rhythms are perhaps the most unusual of any jazz player.
Sometimes they are jagged, but they are always pulsating and
full of rhythmic drive. The chord structures too are not run-of-the-mill: they
are very complex, sometimes putting discordant (if you want to call them that)
notes together over familiar chord structures as in Body and Soul and Just a
Gigolo. I would say that his is a distinctly masculine approach to jazz -
searching and finding new and positive ways of expressing itself.
The eight tracks contained in MONK'S DREAM are going to be
significant additions to his already legendary performances.
--Teo
Macero