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Rating: The contribution of Thelonious Sphere Monk to the birth and development of modern jazz is immeasurable.
The Mad Hatter was among the very first to preside over the historic jam sessions that took place in the early 1940s at New York's Minton's club, the legendary cradle of bebop. With him were drummer Kenny Clarke, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, known as 'Bird'. If Bird represented the soul of bebop, the charismatic leader, Dizzy was the driving force, and Monk the eminence grise, the secret master.
Nicknamed 'the High Priest of bebop', this Grand Priest was one of the direct architects of the theorization and creation of bebop itself, through his strong influence on the other two greats, who constantly sought his advice on solving various musical problems. Monk answered their questions in his own way: by playing the solutions on the piano in front of the young 'students', who voraciously absorbed everything. Nevertheless, Monk's relationship with Bird and Diz, and with bebop in general, was never one of great affinity. His music was very different from bop (and from any other music), and he was one of the few who did not consider those two as gods, and he was quite harsh in putting them into perspective.
He declared, "Bird and Diz taught me nothing on a musical level, not a chord or a trick. Instead, I have the impression that by playing with me, asking me for advice on how to obtain a better sound, how to write good arrangements, and having me correct their music, they were the ones composing themes that somehow came directly from me."
Despite his importance as a "hidden figure" of bebop, it is undoubtedly his talent in composition that has rendered Monk immortal, being in this field second only to Duke Ellington in the world of jazz. His unorthodox pianistic technique, full of "wrong" notes (he hammered the keyboard with outstretched fingers), scandalized purists, who even accused him of not being able to play (!), and his eccentricities, his bearish character, his indifference to success, and his skirmishes with the police meant that the recognition of his genius by the public and much of the critics came very late. Meanwhile, his musical world remained crystallized and did not change even when success came and he became a star, to whom "Time" magazine dedicated a cover and a long feature in '64. To him, what others did and said, inside and outside the world of music, never mattered; he always remained true to his vision of things.
And his musical vision can be perfectly represented by the debut albums "Genius Of Modern Music", Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, certainly the most historically important records of Monk (and also among his masterpieces), recorded in the period '47-'53 for Alfred Lion's Blue Note. The pieces contained in these two CDs, in the history of jazz, bear the same importance as Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives & Sevens, Charlie Parker's Savoy and Dial recordings, Davis's "Kind Of Blue", and Coltrane's "A Love Supreme."
Indeed, many of his best compositions are present here, including in Vol. 1 "Ruby My Dear", "Well You Needn't", "Off Minor", "Introspection", "In Walked Bud", "Monk's Mood", and the very famous "'Round Midnight", so dear to Miles Davis, and played far and wide by entire legions of jazz musicians. Other standout pieces in Vol. 2 are "Four In One", "Criss Cross", "Straight No Chaser", "Ask Me Now", "Let's Cool One". Additionally, some standards appear, which Monk gave various versions over the years, metabolizing and elaborating the starting material to the point of making it his own in every respect. These are the "Monkian" "Nice Work If You Can Get It" by Gershwin, "April In Paris" by Vernon Duke, and the antique "Carolina Moon" and "I'll Follow You", each transfigured under a distorting lens.
All his tracks are characterized by incredible rhythmic virtuosity, where melodic lines and harmonic structures rarely follow conventional cadences and accents. Instead, they follow a particular parallel logic, which manages to achieve the miracle of making his pieces highly catchy and enjoyable, as well as very balanced, despite the multiple upbeat accents and the asymmetric and skewed arrangements across various measures. Yes, because regardless of the high formal complexity, the motivations and inspiration driving Monk are instead elementary, primordial, and thus close to anyone. Thelonious is like a primitive artist who enjoys creating strange and grotesque forms with crooked intertwinings of gnarled branches, and who succeeds in the dual challenge of making them stand upright and expressing what is inside him.
Accompanying him in the recording sessions are second-tier musicians in Vol. 1 (with the exception of drummer Art Blakey), something that fortunately does not impair the quality of the music at all, while in Vol. 2 appear more important names like Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Lou Donaldson (alto sax), Lucky Thompson (tenor sax), Art Blakey and Max Roach (drums).
He was a master and a reference point for hundreds of musicians, and he continues to be.
"Monk is DEEP". Dizzy Gillespie
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