What is the 1st known recording of Monk?

[Hardbopjazz]

Anyone have the answer to this? I have a live recording from Minton’s Playhouse 5/12/41. It claims to be the first recording of Monk. Sound is pretty awful, but it's Monk.

[Late]

For some reason, I've never thought about this — great question!

Who's on the Minton's recording?

Would Monk have showed up on any early Coleman Hawkins-led radio broadcasts?

[doubleM]

Diz, Joe Guy (tpts), Don Byas (ts), Monk (p), Kenny Kersey (p), Nick Fenton (b), Kenny Clarke (d). Byas' solo on Stardust is a tour de force!!!

[Late]

Now you've got me Jones-ing to hear this ... never've heard Monk with Byas ...

[Hardbopjazz]

Diz, Joe Guy (tpts), Don Byas (ts), Monk (p), Kenny Kersey (p), Nick Fenton (b), Kenny Clarke (d). Byas' solo on Stardust is a tour de force!!!

Those are the players I have listed on the recording. Supposedly Charlie Christian showed up as well. But I could never hear him on the recording, so I can't confirm him being there. He would have soloed at some point I would think. It is a private recording someone traded with me.

[doubleM]

Late, pM me if you want to do a trade! Or, if you just need a copy to sate your curiousity.

[Jazz Kat]

Diz, Joe Guy (tpts), Don Byas (ts), Monk (p), Kenny Kersey (p), Nick Fenton (b), Kenny Clarke (d). Byas' solo on Stardust is a tour de force!!!

Those are the players I have listed on the recording. Supposedly Charlie Christian showed up as well. But I could never hear him on the recording, so I can't confirm him being there. He would have soloed at some point I would think. It is a private recording someone traded with me.

THere's probaly a good chance of Christian being there. He, Clarke, and monk practically lived there during the late 40's.

[jazzbo]

One nice way to get this stuff is on this OJC cd:

http://www.fantasyjazz.com/catalog/christian_c_cat.html

[Jazz Kat]

I been to that place. Cool site! I sent away for the complete fantasy catalogue. It's very good.

[jazzbo]

I love this one:

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?...yle=music&Bab=E

Edited January 24, 2005 by jazzbo

[jazzbo]

And this one!

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?...yle=music&Bab=E

Edited January 24, 2005 by jazzbo

[P.D.]

The Minton's sets are easy to come by as Lon points out above.

There is however no discographical evidence that Monk and Christian played together, the tracks with Christian are from different sets to those with Monk.

The pianist on the Christian tracks is either that famous musician " Unknown" or Ken Kersey.

[jazzbo]

Right.

No reason NOT to get those sessions though. Kenny and Unk really do a good job, the rest of the music is really interesting as well.

[AllenLowe]

The Monk tracks are interesting for a number of reasons. Mary Lou Williams once commented that Monk, in those days, was playing like Teddy Wilson; on the evidence of those recordings he was definitely working in that idiom, though he already had his own take in it. And he developed very quickly - there is an Onyx LP of Monk backing another soloist - I forget which - in which he plays Nice Work If You Can get and Melcancholy Baby; it is from 1941 and he is already the definitive Monk -

[brownie]

The pianist on 'Sweet Georgia Brown' and 'Topsy' on the Onyx album 'After Hours in Harlem/Hot Lips Page' is Monk. And it's pure Monk!

[Brad]

Now you've got me Jones-ing to hear this ... never've heard Monk with Byas ...

Late,

The first cd posted by Lon is the one doubleM is referring to. There also Thelonious Monk, The Early Thelonious Monk, on Moon Records (MCD 086-2), which has 1941 Monk on it. I don't know how easy that is to get anymore.

[mikeweil]

The Minton's live recordings are the earliest Monk recordings we have; I found issue numbers of 7 different LPs on ONYX, Xanadu, Musidisc and Esoteric.

The first studio date was the December 19, 1944 Coleman Hawkins date for Joe Davis, later sold to Prestige. It opens the 3 CD Prestige Monk box set and can be found on the Milestone Hawkins CD "Bean and the Boys".

[AllenLowe]

another fasincating, Monk-related piece, by the way, is Mary Lou Williams' 1944 solo recording of Caravan; it is unlike anything else she ever recorded, and is remarkable in that it shows the INFLUENCE of Monk - very unusual for its time -

Edited January 25, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Late]

Now you've got me Jones-ing to hear this ... never've heard Monk with Byas ...

Late,

The first cd posted by Lon is the one doubleM is referring to. There also Thelonious Monk, The Early Thelonious Monk, on Moon Records (MCD 086-2), which has 1941 Monk on it. I don't know how easy that is to get anymore.

Thanks Brad!

[lkaven]

Those Minton's recordings, I believe, were recorded by WKCR as a live-on-disk program. The recordings were made at Minton's, and a runner would relay disks the couple of blocks to the WKCR studios at the end of each disk, where they'd get broadcast. There's more than one of the series, and one of them does have Charlie Christian on it. Wish someone could have been there to record every night.

Luke

[Chuck Nessa]

Those Minton's recordings, I believe, were recorded by WKCR as a live-on-disk program. The recordings were made at Minton's, and a runner would relay disks the couple of blocks to the WKCR studios at the end of each disk, where they'd get broadcast. There's more than one of the series, and one of them does have Charlie Christian on it. Wish someone could have been there to record every night.

Luke

No, they were recorded in the club on a disc recorder by Jerry Newman.

[Brad]

yes, Chuck is correct. All those High Note cds and probably the Moon (since it's probably a rip off of the Don Byas cd) were recorded by him. He also, among others, recorded some of the songs that appeared on Charlie Christian Jazz Immortal and Dizzy Gillespie 1941 cd, originally issued on Esoteric and later re-issued by Fantasy. If I'm not mistaken other Esoteric records had Jerry Newman's material on it.

[mjzee]

There's a great Mosaic project: The Complete Jerry Newman Recordings.

And, while we're at it, how about: The Complete Boris Rose Recordings.

[JSngry]

Didn't Chris say something a while back about Newman donating his collection to WKCR at one time?

[lkaven]

Aren't we both right?

I get this from an interview with Phil Schaap:

"Far more interesting, in terms of live jazz, are the "Delayed on Disc" broadcasts from Minton's Playhouse on 118th Street. We didn't have a radio wire to Minton's Playhouse -- they would go there with a disc recorder, and would have to run the records back here to play them. So they presented it like it was a live program, but it was "delayed on disc." Clearly the pivotal figure here was Jerry Newman. There are four Minton's Playhouse broadcasts, of which he is the announcer on two of them. An anonymous second voice delighted me doing the announcements on one of the two other broadcasts -- he gets up to announce the band, but apparently there was a bit of bickering over whose band it really was. Joe Guy thought it was his band, Kenny Clarke thought it was his band, Thelonious Monk may have thought it was his band. So he's announcing, "this is Joe Guy's band at the Playhouse, featuring..." -- and he makes a big deal about featuring Kenny Clarke, "and on bass..." -- and you can see he's looking around, that guy's name is... "oh yeah, Nick Fenton" -- and then you realize he doesn't know the piano player's name, but he remembers everybody's been calling him "Monk". So he goes, "and the piano player's name is Monk -- I'm sorry I haven't had time to find out his last name." That's in the archives -- it was re-placed there by yours truly -- the original discs are long gone. The sense of humor of these early WKCR people is very evident; they don't have any formal legal restrictions, so on one of them the guy goes, "this is radio station...", and then he belches."