April 3, 1997
Thelonious Monk is one of the most thrillingly unpredictable pianist-composers in jazz. His style is unique and immediately recognizable, reminding us that the piano is a percussive instrument. This date's pairing with seminal bop drummer Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers is a nearly perfect symbiotic relationship, as Blakey's deeply polyrhythmic style with its offbeat flourishes mirror Monk's eccentric sensibility.
All but one of the tracks come from Monk's pen, and many have become jazz classics; "In Walked Bud" in particular has a terrific, surging melody that Monk proceeds to deconstruct in singular fashion. While the horns are strong and straightforward, Monk's own solos are sly and understated. He plays against the beat, is discordant and even sarcastic in his harmonic attacks. A brief melody will suddenly fall to pieces as Monk pegs out notes that the piano was never designed for, stretching the limitations of his instrument. It's as if 88 keys aren't enough for him - he'll strike two adjacent keys at once, trying to reach in between the notes, even using the pedals to bend the sound to his liking.
Jazz critics often cite the ephemeral "colors" and "shadings" that Monk produces. While evocative of his left-field style, it's impossible to describe without hearing; suffice it to say Monk approaches the melody from all directions without explicitly stating it, hinting and alluding before going off on his own tangents, following a mad but comprehensible logic.
Above all, Monk is fun. All his work involves humor, a quality sadly missing from much of jazz. His wry intelligence and undeniable genius is grounded by the rest of the quintet's more conventional but no less skilled work - Johnny Griffin's sax is in especially fine form on this solid, enjoyable recording.
- Jared O'Connor
thrillingly unpredictable