Comments on: Friday Night Jazz: Thelonious Monk

By: Leisa

Leisa — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:51:35 +0000

Barry, I have a Coltrain CD that I bought. I’m going to send it to you, for I really do not get any enjoyment out of it.

~~~

BR: Which one?

By: Guy Lerner

Guy Lerner — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:57:26 +0000

Barry

I didn’t know you that are such renaissance man! Good going!!!

By: tristaina

tristaina — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:47:14 +0000

That is heavy! Thelonius Monk, the melodious thunk!

When you think that there are people like that who do something serious with their lives, and then there are jokers like us who don’t really do anything at all but think about money …

By: David Graves

David Graves — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:04:04 +0000

“Straight, no chaser” is an amazing piece of documentary film. For me, there is no one whose chromatic invention matches the rhythmic looseness of Monk. Sit down with one of the recordings listed above with a friend on a Sunday night. Play it and listen. If it’s your first time (i.e. never heard Monk before), be prepared for a life-changing experience. Those are rare. Thanks, Mr. B. for reminding us how special one of the greats of mid-twentieth century American music was.

By: MKS

MKS — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 06:58:12 +0000

fyi,

Charlie Rouse is on the sax, not coltrane. At least that is what the dvd cover says.
And the video is not the 1957 Carnegie Hall, but in 1966 (dont know where it is).

if anyone knows if this recording is available in amazon audio, please let me know.

cheers.

By: bostonian

bostonian — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:50:47 +0000

I am a fan of the blog. I read it every day. I have to say, I am getting tired of the feeds full of HTML. Are your sure the mime type is correct on the feed? It should be text/xml. Thanks. I use netnewswire on OS X.

By: drtomaso

drtomaso — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 02:41:28 +0000

I had to play the video several times. Each time I pick up on a little more of the dialog going on between Monk and ‘Trane.

By: howard

howard — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:30:53 +0000

now you’re talking, barry!

any fan of monk, btw, must see the exceptional documentary “straight no chaser,” and there’s also some nice monk moments in the “great day in harlem” documentary.

i go back and forth between monk and rollins as to my favorite jazz musician in history (although i think that ornette is more important than either), but barry does a nice job of elucidating monk’s triple threat status.

monk was known for saying (rough paraphrase): “why do we throw the melody away when we improvise?” interestingly enough, although monk’s compositions are frequently covered by others, no one but monk is able to play them in the monk manner – that is, to improvise simultaneously on the rhythm, harmony, AND melody all the way through.

of course, lots of lamebrains accused him of lacking technique back in the day; luckily, quality will out, in music as in stocks.

By: MKS

MKS — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:44:16 +0000

Great piece. enjoyed it very much, Barry.

Thanks.

By: Alan Coffey

Alan Coffey — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:09:10 +0000

A (young)friend of mine was recently discussing his favourite forgotten bands of the 90′s
(http://www.evolvor.com/2007/02/26/top-5-forgotten-rock-bands-of-the-1990s/)and got a bunch of us thinking of the 80′s, 70′s and on back. A guy we remembered fondly was John Coltrane. My roomate in college had the album pictured above and he introduced a lot of us to these men and their work. It is Friday night and high time to find those CD’s again…