Review Of The Week: Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane

Released on Blue Note Records.

5/5 stars

Although I was introduced to jazz at a young age, I never dove headfirst into it. Every few days, I would ask my dad what he was listening to, and he would always reply, “jazz.” Simple, straightforward, I understood it, and I knew what jazz sounded like. Then one day I heard some music coming from his room and asked him, as usual, and he said, “Monk.”

Until about five years ago, I always thought “monk” was a subgenre of jazz, like bebop or swing. After finding out the truth I filed this away as an amusing anecdote, until I heard this recording, and realized that Thelonious Monk actually is his own subgenre.

One of Monk’s greatest characteristics as a jazz pianist was his ability to create something dissonant and complex, yet somehow still infinitely listenable. It is a capability that sets him apart as a unique performer with more than a few great performances. So, when an engineer at the Library of Congress recently discovered a supposedly lost 1957 recording of the Thelonious Monk Quartet performing with tenor sax legend John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, jazz fans were foaming at the mouth.

One track off the album is “Evidence,” a Monk standard that likely had jaws dropping all over the auditorium. The tune is fragmented, a series of seemingly random notes that somehow come together. The only discernible part of the melody is one five-note phrase that gives the piece its own personal flavor. The piece is kept together, not by the excellent rhythm section of Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums, but the interplay between Monk and Coltrane, particularly during the first solo section.

As usual, Monk’s signature dissonant chords, rapid-fire runs down the piano and flat-hand technique are all there. But this time around, he is not simply going through the motions. Every note is important, and he forces the audience to listen to every move he makes. The notes themselves are often secondary to the silences, the stutters, the phrases, and everything else that connects one pitch to another.

Sometimes the chords sound a little off; needless to say, they are supposed to sound that way, and every time you think you hear a conventional pattern of voice-leading in his accompaniment, he abandons it and plays a perfectly timed major seventh at the top of the piano and throws you off balance. This is not to say that Monk’s playing is haphazard or cacophonous. Rather, it has its own unique beauty that cannot be reduced to a series of dehumanized chord progressions and riffs.

Monk’s closest musical relative is not an obvious candidate like Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, or even Louis Armstrong, but rather J.S. Bach. Listen to the audience’s applause after Monk’s solo on “Nutty.” Simultaneously spellbound, confused, and awed by Monk’s avant-baroque jam, they hardly know what to do with themselves. The brilliant complexity of opener “Monk’s Mood,” displaying the great pianist at his best, truly is bewildering. It is enigmatic yet familiar, warm yet aloof.

All this talk about Monk’s brilliance shining through during his performances overshadows one fact: that John Coltrane’s performance with Monk rivals that of his first classic solo album, “Blue Train,” released the same year. This is not the cathartic, redemptive Coltrane of “A Love Supreme;” Coltrane, who obviously is inspired by the beauty of Monk’s music, acts as an extension of Monk. He, unlike many bebop players of that time, “gets” Monk, and his solos, while essentially Coltrane, reflect Monk’s accompaniment (and vice-versa) perfectly.

The album does have imperfect moments. The ballad “Sweet & Lovely,” lingers a bit too long for all of its beautiful moments and seamless tempo changes. Wilson makes a few overbearing choices on drums, particularly in the full version of “Epistrophy” (he uses his rapid-fire cymbal coloring more effectively on the incomplete version, also included). Nevertheless, rediscovered recordings are rarely as brilliant as this one; there is a reason why this recording is the best-selling new jazz album right now.

The cliché most often used when talking about a great jazz performance is that the players were “telepathic.” The word does apply here, as in any discussion of improvisational masters, but Monk and Coltrane are clearly separate entities, their geniuses reverberating off each other.

Hearing the pair doesn’t feel like witnessing a performance; it is overhearing a conversation in some wonderfully strange language, of which you can pick up bits and pieces, but not quite the whole thing.

Thanks to the discovery of this album, jazz lovers can listen to this wonderful conversation over and over again.