Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Alone in San Francisco

LA RECENSIONE

Chopin is black, wears funny hats, and plays by divine concession.

In doing so, he dissects the night with a magic lantern: on one side the shadow, on the other the light. Then stitches it all back together to create a sort of musical yin-yang where harmony and dissonance end up being one and the same.

But don’t expect anything extraordinary. In fact, imagine something of no importance. So unimportant that, listening to it now, it almost makes you wonder: “Are we in an amusement park or a nightclub?”

Childish and ringing sounds (of a ringing that doesn’t seek attention) give way to the shadow, a shadow full of angles and edges. (The yin and yang we mentioned).

Infinite magic (all drenched in the beauty of small and luminous things) shines for a moment, but, since it's all a sequence, in reality, they always shine. (The magic lantern we mentioned).

Add a kind of science of pauses, the unsaid and the void that accentuates the subsequent fullness and makes certain sounds dart like multicolored little fish while others are loaded with shadow and depth.

And then a sort of stumbling grace, a very human uncertainty in the light.

I like our black Chopin when he plays alone, as in this record.

Because, when he plays with others, the pieces lose that marvelous charm made of laconicity and an apparent aimlessness. Better, much better, the solitary wanderer who zigzags through paths and blue roads.

Okay, our black Chopin is not Chopin. His name was, indeed, Thelonious Monk, he wore funny hats and played by divine concession. Only, divine concessions often come with a price.

But I don’t feel like writing this part of the review. I don’t want to write about Monk the madman, Monk the eccentric, Monk the catatonic, a hint is more than enough,

Let’s just say that Monk was someone who thought differently and thus played differently. Let's say that for me Monk was (and is) Chopin...

Trallallà...