Monk at 90 - Free piano marathon on Oct. 10

[fkimbrough]

Monk at 90 - Fazioli Piano Marathon

Winter Garden, World Financial Center

October 10 from 5 – 9:15pm:

free admission

The World Financial Center is located in Lower Manhattan, in the heart of Battery Park City. The complex is bordered by Vesey Street along the north, West Street to the east, Liberty Street on the south, and the Hudson River to the west.

Please join New York's finest jazz and classical pianists to celebrate Thelonious Monk's 90th birthday.

Schedule:

5:00 Aaron Goldberg

5:10 Rachel Z

5:25 Helio Alves

5:35 Deidre Rodman

5:45 Frank Kimbrough

6:00 Natalia Kazaryan

6:15 Rodney Kendrick

6:30 Luis Perdomo

6:45 Juan Jose Chuquisengo

7:00 Aaron Diehl

7:15 Ran Jia

7:30 Randy Weston

7:45 Martha Marchena

8:00 Fred Hersch

8:15 Cedar Walton

8:30 Joel Fan

8:45 Geri Allen

9:00 Dan Tepfer

Sponsored by the World Financial Center, the Thelonious Monk Institute, and Fazioli Piano in association with Klavierhaus

[Clunky]

wow

[7/4]

I should go to this, but I doubt I'll have the time.

On second thought, it isn't too far from J&R music.

[Randy Twizzle]

All it takes is a 30 second elevator ride for me to be front and center in the Winter Garden, the bad news is that the greedy ruling class bastards who pay my salary actually expect me to be hard at work from 5 to 9:15 pm, but I'll use all my powers to find a way to hear some of the music.

[brownie]

The review of the concert in The New York Times today:

Music Review | Monk at 90

JANGLY RUNS AND OTHER UNMISTAKABLY MONKISH MOVES

By NATE CHINEN

Published: October 12, 2007

Wrapping up his solo performance at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden on Wednesday night, the pianist Randy Weston tossed off a scrap of “Happy Birthday to You.” That gesture, which followed a free-associative medley of Thelonious Monk compositions, came at a good time: about three hours into a nearly five-hour concert in honor of Monk’s 90th birthday. As played by Mr. Weston, it felt like a patently Monkish move.

Naturally it wasn’t the only one on a program that featured 19 pianists in solo formats, mainly drawn from across the New York jazz firmament. But the most interesting aspect of “Monk at 90” — produced by Jim Luce and Sujatri Reisinger in conjunction with Fazioli Pianoforti and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz — was the panoply of approaches toward Monk’s music, which abides its own logic and inhabits its own climate.

Monk himself was a formidable solo pianist, and an unmistakable one. During the prolific middle period of his career, in the 1950s and ’60s — he died in 1982 but had withdrawn from the spotlight in the previous decade — he made a handful of terrific solo recordings, editorializing on standards as well as his own songs. His gripping solo style, both artful and seemingly casual, poses a unique challenge to any inheritor.

Mr. Weston, who mastered this negotiation long ago, began his mini-set with “Zulu,” one of his own vintage tunes. (“You can hear the Monk influence,” he advised by way of introduction, and indeed you could.) He was one of only a few pianists on the program who seemed keen on channeling Monk whole, as a physical force as well as an idea.

Rodney Kendrick was another. He delivered “Body and Soul” as a ceremonial prelude, gently elasticizing the time. On “Crepuscule With Nellie” he played several jangly runs that brought Monk clearly to mind, though the patient exposition was his own.

“Crepuscule” also provided the crux of Frank Kimbrough’s expressive performance, which began and ended in a spirit of dramatic indeterminacy. Through jarring clusters and rumbling drones, he illuminated Monk’s influence among modern successors like Keith Jarrett. It was beautiful, and unnerving.

Cedar Walton and Fred Hersch offered refined perspectives on Monk the composer. Mr. Walton played a loping “Off Minor” and a gorgeous elaboration on “’Round Midnight.” (Surprisingly, this was the only instance of that theme.) Mr. Hersch, who came next, played “Work” as a comfortable challenge, then strolled thoughtfully through “Don’t Blame Me” — a standard, like “Body and Soul,” that Monk played memorably in solo renditions.

Aaron Diehl, a product of the jazz program at Juilliard, made his set a history lesson, touching on James P. Johnson and Duke Ellington, as well as Monk’s “Little Rootie Tootie.” He sounded exceedingly careful, but in context his premise worked nicely.

Some other pianists on the program made the decision to leave Monk out of the picture. This contingent included a handful of classical players, like Juan José Chuquisengo, who rollicked through Ravel’s “Valse.” More disappointingly, it also included jazz-literate pianists like Deidre Rodman and Rachel Z.

Of course few people, in jazz or elsewhere, can do what Geri Allen did: turn a jutting melody, like the one from “Epistrophy,” into a high-voltage tour de force, precarious and dazzling. Future iterations of this piano marathon, which is scheduled to repeat annually until Monk’s centennial, would do well to keep Ms. Allen close at hand.