Thelonious Monk (1917) was not only the most cerebral pianist to enter the history
of jazz music but also the greatest composer of the bebop era.
Epistrophy (1942) and the immortal Round about Midnight (1944)
were composed for the orchestra of Cootie Williams,
I Mean You (1946) for Coleman Hawkins' band.
52nd Street Theme (june 1945) became a classic of bebop when it was recorded by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
At the same time that his compositions were leaving a mark on the transition from swing to bebop, his piano style
(in Coleman Hawkins' band that he had joined in 1944)
was confusing the audience.
It was a style that sounded outside the jazz tradition, not only
eccentric but also laconic, almost counterproductive in the way it emphasized
the pauses instead of the rhythm,
and clustered chords instead of linear development.
His recordings of his own compositions established a higher musical standard than jazz music was used to:
Humph (october 1947) and Thelonious (october 1947), that exhibits an almost classical geometry while employing both silence and dissonance, for a piano sextet (Idrees Sulieman on trumpet, Danny Quebec West on alto sax, Billy Smith on tenor sax, Gene Ramey on bass, Art Blakey on drums);
Well You Needn't (october 1947), Off Minor (october 1947) and the tender ballad Ruby My Dear (october 1947) for a trio (with Art Blakey on drums);
the ballad Monk's Mood (november 1947) for a trumpet-sax-piano quintet;
Evidence (july 1948) and the bluesy Misterioso (july 1948) for a piano quartet with Milt Jackson on vibraphone.
Monk's art was a calibrated balance of deconstruction and estrangement
techniques. On one hand, one could still hear elements of stride jazz,
boogie-woogie, blues, even nursery rhymes, although they were diluted in
an anarchic patchwork of overtones. On the other hand, the listener was
disoriented by the fragile, naked ambiguity of the music.
That ambiguity would disappear if one could only appreciate the hidden
orchestral quality of Monk's piano playing.
A piano quintet with Jackson on vibraphone, Sahib Shihab on alto sax, Blakey on drums, yielded
the romantic ballad Ask Me Now (july 1951), the blues Straight No Chaser (july 1951), Four in One (july 1951) and Criss Cross (july 1951).
A quintet with French horn player Julius Watkins, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, Percy Heath on bass, was immortalized on the album
Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins (november 1953)
with
Friday the 13th (1953) and Think of One (1953), based on an ostinato trick similar to Thelonious.
Hackensack (may 1954) and Locomotive (may 1954), with a 20-bar chorus,
were due to a quintet of trumpet, tenor sax, piano, drums and bass.
In the piano-trio format favored by his friend Bud Powell, Monk sculpted
Bemsha Swing (december 1952),
the Caribbean-sounding Monk's Dream (october 1952),
Nutty (september 1954), Blue Monk (september 1954) and the dissonant Work (september 1954). Max Roach drummed on the first one, Blakey on all the others.
In the meantime, jazz music had entered the age of the album.
his first solo album, Thelonious Monk (june 1954) offered solo-piano versions
of his early classics, including Eronel (1951) and Reflections (1953).
After two albums of covers, Monk was allowed to make the album that he was
capable of,
Brilliant Corners (october 1956), a set of complex chamber pieces for
tenor saxophone (Sonny Rollins), alto saxophone (Ernie Henry), bass (Oscar Pettiford), drums (Max Roach) and piano, notably
Brilliant Corners and
Pannonica, in which Monk played both piano and celeste.
This was to remain his masterpiece.
Jazz Connection (may 1957) with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers
revisited several of his classics.
Thelonious Himself (april 1957) was mostly solo interpretations.
Another historical collaboration, with the young John Coltrane, documented on Live at the Five Spot (may 1957), only released in 1993, Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (july 1957), only released in 1991,
and At Carnegie Hall (november 1957), only released in 2005,
that paired two completely
opposite souls (the reclusive philosopher and the cosmic virtuoso),
yielded a spectacular version of Monk's Trinkle Tinkle and his moving ballad Crepuscule With Nellie.
After Mulligan Meets Monk (august 1957) with Gerry Mulligan and other minor
collaborations, Monk joined in a quartet with tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin
that recorded Thelonious in Action (july 1958)
and especially Misterioso (august 1958).
The repertory was now fossilized: Monk kept repeating his themes of the
golden years.
Monk died in 1982 at 65.
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