BLP 1511

Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music Volume 2

Released - March 1956

Recording and Session Information

WOR Studios, NYC, October 15, 1947
Idrees Suliman, trumpet; Danny Quebec West, alto sax; Billy Smith, tenor sax; Thelonious Monk, piano; Eugene Ramey, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN309-4 Evonce
BN310-1 Suburban Eyes

WOR Studios, NYC, October 24, 1947
Thelonious Monk, piano; Eugene Ramey, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN312-1 Nice Work

WOR Studios, NYC, November 21, 1947
George Taitt, trumpet; Edmund Gregory, alto sax; Thelonious Monk, piano; Robert Paige, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN319-0 Monk's Mood
BN320-0 Who Knows

WOR Studios, NYC, July 23, 1951
Sahib Shihab, alto sax #1,2; Milt Jackson, vibes #1,2; Thelonious Monk, piano; Al McKibbon, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

BN392-1 Four In One
BN395-0 Straight No Chaser
BN396-1 Ask Me Now

WOR Studios, NYC, May 30, 1952
Kenny Dorham, trumpet; Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Lucky Thompson, tenor sax; Thelonious Monk, piano; Nelson Boyd, bass; Max Roach, drums.

BN434-1 tk.2 Skippy
BN435-3 tk.7 Hornin' In
BN437-0 tk.10 Carolina Moon
BN438-0 tk.11 Let's Cool One

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Carolina Moon	Benny Davis, Joe Burke	30 May 1952
Hornin' in	Thelonious Monk	30 May 1952
Skippy	Thelonious Monk	30 May 1952
Let's Cool One	Thelonious Monk	30 May 1952
Suburban Eyes	Ike Quebec	15 October 1947
Evonce	Ike Quebec, Idrees Sulieman	15 October 1947
Side Two
Straight, No Chaser	Thelonious Monk	23 July 1951
Four in One	Thelonious Monk	23 July 1951
Nice Work (If You Can Get It)	Gershwin, Gershwin	24 October 1947
Monk's Mood	Thelonious Monk	21 November 1947
Who Knows?	Thelonious Monk	21 November 1947
Ask Me Now	Thelonious Monk	23 July 1951

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	REID K. MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	IRA GITLER

Liner Notes

THE DICTIONARY tells us that genius is exceptional natural capacity for creative and original conceptions and a genius is a person having such capacity. When considering the attributes of Thelonious Monk in the light of this definition, the title Genius Of Modern Music fits logically in all its aspects.

Monks creativity is not limited to only the melodic or the harmonic or the rhythmic but embraces all three.

His harmonic innovations (new chord) patterns and reinterpretations of older ones) were some of the most important germinating factors at Mintons. In fact Monk is synonymous with the Mintons of the earliest Forties because of the major role he played there in the birth of the now music.

The melodic side of Monk is exemplified best by his original compositions such as ‘Round About Midnight. Well You Needn't, Ruby My Dear and Off Minor which have become permanent parts of the “Jazz library” through numerous in person performances and recordings by Monk and by people like Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Stan Getz and Jimmy Raney, George Wallington, Kenny Dorham and Barney Kessel.

Monks rhythmic subtleties are more a permanent personal part of him than his melodic and harmonic contributions which have been assumed and interpreted by many other musicians. Among the pianists only Randy Weston has been directly influenced by him although Bud Powell and other pianists of that idiom exhibit Monkish flavor at various times. The rhythmic nuances by this master of time seem to escape Monk’s detractors who give him little credit a o soloist but even if this side remains an enigma to them, the melodic and harmonic richness of performances like ‘Round About Midnight, Ruby My Dear, April In Paris, Introspection, Ask Me Now and Four in One is proof enough of his singular prowess and certainty more than enough food for thought. The wit and warmth are in abundance.

His direct antecedents are hard to discern but there is a tacit link with the Harlem pianists of an earlier era. Occasionally this comes out into the open as in the striding left hand on Thelonious and the “train blues” on Well You Needn’t, but it is the implied spirit which embodies more than one era of Jazz.

These two volumes represent the finest collection of Thelonious Monk to be found anywhere with lucid examples of his work from both the Fortes and the Fifties.

Volume 1 (BLP 1510) contains recordings culled from the mid and late Forties. There is the sombre beauty of the already immortalized ‘Round About Midnight, the percussive, provocative minority of Off Minor, the sentiment without sentimentality of Ruby My Dear, the unflagging freshness of Well You Needn’t, the Monk in Paris in April of April in Paris, the questioning beauty of the heretofore unreleased Introspection, the humor and ingenuity of the one-noted Thelonious and the marvelous harmonic and rhythmic interplay between Milt Jackson and Monk on Epistrophy (written by Monk and Kenny Clarke). I Mean You (a theme borrowed by Gerry Mulligan for his Motel) and Misterioso.

Volume 2 (BLP 1511) has five tracks from the Forties. Suburban Eyes, written by tenorman Ike Quebec, and Evonce, a Quebec-Idresse Suliman collaboration, feature Quebec's cousin Danny Quebec West on alto, the Dexter Gordonish (of that time) tenor of Billy Smith and the pungent trumpet of Idresse Sulman in addition to Monk. Suliman has only started to be appreciated recently. This group can be heard on Humph and Thelonious in Volume 1.

Two of the remaining Forties-recorded tracks are Monk’s Mood, a piano solo integrated with the theme, as carried by George Taitt and Sahib Shihab, which expresses a melancholia with one cent worth of hope, and the up tempo Who Knows. These are done by the quintet which appears on ‘Round About Midnight and In Walked Bud in Volume 1. Nice Work, a trio exploration of the Gershwin classic, stems from a 1947 trio session.

The majority of the tracks in Volume 2 were recorded in the Fifties. Four In One and Straight No Chaser reunite Monk with Milt Jackson, Sahib Shihab and Art Blakey. It is interesting and rewording to hear the maturation of the four colleagues. Ask Me Now, done at the same session with just the trio. is worthy of the earlier great trio performances.

As composer-arranger for the sextet, Monk shows another facet of his skill. The 6/4 waltz that he makes of Carolina Moon is an example of how to get away from the usual jazz beat and still swing. Donaldson, Kenny Dorham and Lucky Thompson help considerably in the realization of this attempt (to say nothing of Max Roach) and make their solo power felt in the other numbers, Hornin' In, Skippy and Lei’s Cool One. Contrast these sextet tracks with the exact instrumentation of the Suburban Eyes group and you’ll see where Monk has continued to grow while still remaining tho individual personality who leads and influences modern music and its makers.

— IRA GITLER

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

After recording three sessions over a mere five-week period in 1947 (see Genius of Modern Music Volume One in the RVG series), Thelonious Monk was no longer an unknown pianist/composer. Nor was he the instantly-embraced new darling of writers and fans. In The Thelonious Monk Reader(Oxford, 2001), editor Rob van der Bliek has collected the initial critical responses, and excepting early champion Paul Bacon they are generally confused. Blue Note remained supportive, and brought Monk into the studio for the fourth time in less than a year on July 2, 1948; the classic results are now found on the self-titled RVG CD of the date's featured sideman Milt Jackson. Then three years passed before the quintet session included here was produced. During that time, Monk only recorded twice — on the Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker reunion session for Norman Granz and a pair of tracks by the obscure vocalist Frankie Passions.

Monk's vision, inspiration and level of execution as pianist, composer, and bandleader had certainly not been inhibited, to judge by the results of the quintet and subsequent sextet performances that comprise the present program. They are the work of a still little-known veteran who turned 34 between the two sessions, and who found even less opportunity to work after a police incident led to the revocation of his New York City cabaret card. Together, and programmed in each case with master takes followed by any alternates, these recordings form a most fitting second volume of Monk's Blue Note period, with the growth in his overall individuality (and his arranging skills in particular) placed in bold relief.

The July 23, 1951 date is a much celebrated session that reunited Monk with former studio collaborators Milt Jackson, Sahib Shihab and Art Blakey. The vibraharpist received featured billing when "Willow Weep for Me" was initially released on 78, and the master takes of "Criss Cross" and "Eronel" also appeared on Jackson's Blue Note 10" LP Wizard Of The Vibes. Bassist Al McKibbon made his first appearance on record with Monk here, though he had previously worked in a quartet with Shihab, Monk and Blakey. McKibbon reunited with Monk and Blakey 20 years later on the Giants of Jazz tour that produced Monk's final recordings.

"Four In One" is a rare Monk melody that seems to leap right off the keyboard. It could only have been created by a confident if iconoclastic virtuoso, and it is brilliantly executed by musicians who in each instance have grown more settled into Monk's universe. Several commentators have voiced a preference for the alternate take, which was made after the master, though the existence of two such fine performances should caution us that we will miss much of value if we seek only the one "definitive" reading. My greater enthusiasm for the master, with its very Monkish hesitation in Shihab's solo and great Jackson, may stem from its presence on the 12" LP reissue of Genius of Modern Music Volume Two that I wore out as a young fan.

"Criss Cross" has been called Monk's masterpiece and offers great insight into his compositional approach. It highlights how he makes rhythm work melodically, and how that ascending early pattern suggests a complementary descending response which in turn generates the bridge — all within a structure that produces a further rhythmic kick with its six-bar, 3/3/2 bridge. Gunther Schuller has written that "Criss Cross" is "a purely instrumental conception...an abstraction... it simply states and develops certain musical ideas, in much the way that an abstract painter will work with specific nonobjective patterns." The master was recorded first at a superior slower tempo, and has better solos by Jackson (a full chorus), Shihab and Monk.

The provenance of "Eronel" has been in dispute for decades. As Schuller and Ira Gitler have noted, its excellence implies that it could be Monk's exclusive creation, though co-composer Idrees Sulieman confirmed what is the now-accepted lineage in a March 2001 conversation: "l wrote the A section in the '40s, and tried different bridges that I didn't like. So I went to Sadik Hakim, who came up with the bridge. I showed the finished tune to Miles, who wanted me to change the bridge again; then I showed the tune to Monk. When Monk played it, he played the fourth note of the melody wrong — he played a major seventh instead of the sixth I had written. Monk kept playing it that way, and, together with a few harmonic things he did, that became the way 'Eronel' was played. " As Milt Jackson once remarked, Monk could make mistakes sound better than anyone. "Eronel" has a full chorus by the pianist, who makes a simple trill sound audacious, and finds Shihab returning to the Maurice Chevalier warhorse "Louise" that he previously cited during "Four In One."

"Straight No Chaser" has become one of Monk's most popular compositions. The opening Blakey chorus, full of the drummer's wonderful rim shots, -sets a tempo where the darting accents of the melody can be heard and felt to best effect. The rhythm section plays the theme initially, then it is repeated by the full quintet. Shihab, who responds to the "Misterioso" quote at the end of Monk's solo with "The Kerry Dancers," gets a chorus between supreme blues statements of two choruses each by Monk and Jackson.

This most productive session ends with a pair of ballads, including two trio takes of "Ask Me Now," one of Monk's stark gems in which the left-hand commentary is as telling as the right-hand melody. The master, cut after the alternate, is more forthright and a half-chorus shorter, a concession no doubt to the 78-rpm format in which it originally appeared.

Jackson returns for "Willow Weep For Me," and holds the spotlight throughout after Monk's introduction. Anne Ronnell's blues ballad is an ideal forum for the vibraharpist's two defining traits, soul and romanticism, and it inspires one of the earliest recorded examples of Jackson's mature ballad style.

Monk's May 30, 1952 session was his final one as a leader for Blue Note, and is one of the most underrated of his entire career. While it was originally intended to be released as a 10" LP containing all six titles, "Sixteen" and "1'11 Follow You" went unissued for three decades, while the other four masters first appeared as 78s and received their initial LP release on the 12" version of Genius Volume Two. The sextet instrumentation of Monk's initial Blue Note session is revisited, albeit with more organic results and eloquent soloists. The latter include trumpeter Kenny Dorham, best known at the time for his work with Charlie Parker; alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, who was introduced to the wider jazz world via Milt Jackson's previously noted Blue Note session in April and would get the first of his own numerous dates for the label in June; and tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, then leading a band at the Savoy Ballroom. Two more Parker quintet alumni, Nelson Boyd (one of the period's mainstay bassists) and Max Roach (as compatible in his way as Blakey was with Monk's conception) complete the blue-ribbon assemblage.

"Skippy" immediately exploits the orchestral possibilities of the sextet in a wonderful arrangement. The complex tritone theme, a 32-bar ABAC structure, is played at the opening by Monk and the rhythm section until the horns enter in a descending cadence at bar 25 and then separate for a series of climactic calls. After the solos, the full sextet plays the entire melody with glorious precision. Thompson, Dorham and Monk take a chorus each on both the earlier master and the slightly slower alternate, with Monk displaying the greatest consistency of invention, Dorham sticking to similar ideas, and Thompson in his swing-to-bop transitional mode.

The choice of a master take between the two versions of "Hornin' In" was simplified by the tentative ensemble return on the earlier version, which nonetheless includes particularly inventive solo contributions from Donaldson and Monk. Trumpet, tenor, alto and piano all do well in their half choruses on this harmonically challenging piece, which pianist Ran Blake has described as "a twilight zone at the border of tonality."

Both takes of "Sixteen" (named for the number of measures in its chorus and based on the hoary "Why Do You Do Me?" chord sequence that Sonny Rollins also appropriated for "Doxy") initially appeared together shortly after Monk's death. The Donaldson/Dorham/Thompson/Monk solo sequence is identical on each, with the saxophones taking two choruses while trumpet and piano take one. Donaldson is once again more impressive on the earlier take, while Dorham begins his solo on the second version (presented as the master here) by quoting Monk's "Well You Needn't."

Roach's polyrhythmic magic is central to the triumph of "Carolina Moon," as it had been on Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco" a year earlier. The drummer's 6/4 groove on the theme chorus was particularly unprecedented in a period when few jazz musicians played waltzes. While each soloist does well Dorham's incredibly soulful half-chorus deserves singling out.

Drums and trumpet are again inspired on "Let's Cool One," as is the entire sextet. Thompson's entrance is memorable, and Boyd gets a rare eight bar solo. The title, a catch phrase of disc jockey Ralph Cooper, fits one of Monk's most relaxed compositions to perfection.

The 1932 pop song "I'll Follow You," performed without the horns, also went unissued until 1983. Monk seeks out the interesting angles in what others might simply view as a maudlin theme, and with a typically iconoclastic stroke inserts the verse after the initial theme statement.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2001