Monk - The Last Concerts

[Enterprise Server]

Well, I'm a Monk manic so I'll probably spring for it......*shrugs*......

[Hardbopjazz]

I bought this not knowing it was a boot. Interesting to hear him play with T.S. Monk on drums.

[Hardbopjazz]

I just pulled it out and listened to the first track. It is most definitely an audience recording.

[mjzee]

Thelonious Monk Avery Fisher Hall 1975 WBGO

 

Thelonious Monk in his last broadcast concert on 7/3/195, at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, in New York City. Broadcast on WBGO FM, New York's NPR jazz station. 

 

This performance was part of the Newport Jazz Festival that year, and was Monk's first major concert in 2 years. Monk was in the sunset of his musical career at that time, and had issues with his health and mental state. George Wein of the Newport Jazz Festival persuaded Monk to play this concert, and introduced him and his band. 

 

Thelonious Monk Quartet: Thelonious Monk - Piano, Paul Jeffrey - Tenor Saxophone, Larry Ridley - Bass, Thelonious Monk, Jr. - Drums.

[Teasing the Korean]

7/3/195?

[Daniel A]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

7/3/195?

A little more than 1800 years ago. 

[medjuck]

Robin Kelly (who I presume wasn't there) quotes some less than generous reviews, but I heard this when it was on Wolfgang's vault and I thought Monk  sounded good.  Maybe not essential but definitely worth listening to.   Actually mhatta (who he?) put it very well in 2009. 

[JSngry]

JAZZ Magazine - Summer 1976...so sad that it was not to be...

[JSngry]

down beat 7/18/1974

[danasgoodstuff]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

down beat 7/18/1974

Was this recorded, and if not why not?

[JSngry]

The search continues...

[JSngry]

15 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Was this recorded, and if not why not?

Carnegie Hall caught off guard, as I guess almost everybody was, but still...

https://www.carnegiehall.org/Blog/2019/01/Unexpected-Thelonious-Monk

Still, hope springs eternal, realistically or otherwise.

[danasgoodstuff]

Indeed, it does.

[mhatta]

On 2021/9/26 at 10:20 AM, medjuck said:

Robin Kelly (who I presume wasn't there) quotes some less than generous reviews, but I heard this when it was on Wolfgang's vault and I thought Monk  sounded good.  Maybe not essential but definitely worth listening to.   Actually mhatta (who he?) put it very well in 2009. 

 

What's up? ;-)

Anywise, I still enjoy the recordings from Monk's final years -- I don't know why, but much better than expected.

[medjuck]

2 hours ago, mhatta said:

What's up? ;-)

Anywise, I still enjoy the recordings from Monk's final years -- I don't know why, but much better than expected.

Hey, where you been for the last 12 years? 

[Jim Duckworth]

I caught Monk on a bill with Dizzy Gillespie at Carnegie Hall in 1976. I have been led to believe that this was his last concert.  I was 19 and needed a couple more decades of listening to even begin to understand what I had seen.  About all I can say is that I "saw" it.

[Gheorghe]

The 1975 at Avery Fisher Hall was quite fine, Monk still has a lot to say and T.S. Monk is really a fine drummer. Larry Ridley plays a bowed solo in spite of the fact that Monk once stated he doesn´t like the bow that much.  I know that Paul Jeffrey played a lot with Monk in his final years, as on the 1972 Vanguard also, but somehow I don´t like his tenor as much as I liked Charlie Rouse. Jeffrey tends to repeat ideas and sounds very soulful, but doesn´t have that cutting edge, the "Monkish" thing in it, that Griffin and Rouse had......
I read somewhere that Monk also played for a short time with Pat Patrick from the Sun Ra Arkestra. I would have liked to hear how that sounded. 

I also hope, that the 1974 and 1976 performances would be released one day. Lonnie Hillyier added to the Monk quartet sounds fine. 

1976 I had become a young jazz freak but didn´t have the occasion to travel to N.Y. to hear him and he wouldn´t do Europe in his last years, so I missed to see him life. But I read a jazz magazine from that time and they wrote about the very last occasion on Monk in summer 1976 but only a short notice that they came on stage, didn´t pay no heed to the audience and played.

I also have a book "New York Notes" with reviews about live events in N.Y. between 1972-75. Maybe some of you have this old book. There is also only a short notice about Monk at Avery Fisher 1975, that "he looked thin and grey and sounded more like a usual modern jazz pianist, and that the more abstract Monk gimmicks were gone...."...something like that.

By the way: I never saw a photo of Monk in those years, mid seventies, On the 1971 Giants of Jazz he looks fine, and I noticed that he didn´t wear his hats or caps any more. How did he look like in 1975/76 or even later. Was he really so thin ?