AOTW 12/29-01/03 BRILLIANT CORNERS

[JSngry]

Am I right to think the piece was never rerecorded by Monk? .

No.

He recorded it on his lazt Columbia album, the big band thing w/uncharacteristically horrible Oliver Nelson arrangements.

[Nate Dorward]

Oh jeez, I was trying to forget about that one I think. I've heard it once (a friend with the LP lent it to me).

Speaking of arrangements of Monk, who exactly was Hall Overton & what else did he do?

[couw]

Oh jeez, I was trying to forget about that one I think. I've heard it once (a friend with the LP lent it to me).

Speaking of arrangements of Monk, who exactly was Hall Overton & what else did he do?

there's a nice write up on AMG

[Joe Christmas]

RT, how did you find that Blue Note thread? I'd love to read the one on Paul Horn's SOMETHING BLUE again.

[JSngry]

Al, rooster's away from the board a lot these days due to personal business, but somewhere on this board, somebody said that if you click on the link in his post and start putting in different numbers at tthe end of the URL, that you'll get a different topic with each number. Tedious, yeah, but that's the best info I have to give.

[couw]

http://www.bluenote.com/bulletinboard/ubb/...TML/000001.html

start typing away I'd say

change the 000001 part

Edited February 11, 2004 by couw

[Joe Christmas]

found it! Thanks, guys. Wasn't too hard... I figured it couldn't have come that long after the Brilliant Corners topic. In looking around I realize that:

1) I needed a life in 2000. I posted a shitload back then.

2) That board was a lot of fun.

3) I need a life in 2004.

SOMETHING BLUE JOTW

BIG 6 JOTW

Edited February 11, 2004 by Joe Christmas

[Roundsound]

Of course, this was the first Riverside session to emphasize Monk's compositions. I've listened to it enought that it doesn't give me the umphh that initial listenings provide. Max Roach certainly makes this session extra special. His solo on Brilliant Corners is a great example of drumming to the melody and changes. I like the tympani's as providing extra color and would note that Max Roach used tympanis on Booker Little's session on CAndid (which is real good and has Dolphy) Also I understand that Ernie Henry was in Monk's group at the time. Also I believe that there was some session problems with Oscar Pettiford.

I would also point out that this is the session that DAvid Rosenthal highlighted in his great book Hard Bop. Hardbop provided my roadmap to the world of jazz as it was, when I first stared collecting jazz.

[Larry Kart]

Hall Overton (1920-1972) was primarily a classical composer (studied with Riegger, Milhaud) who also played decent "arranger's style" jazz piano and was associated with some of the more intellectually inclined jazz musicians of the '40s and '50s (Teddy Charles, Jimmy Raney [both studied with him] etc.) I particularly like the album he did for Jubilee with Charles and Oscar Pettiford, "Three for Duke," which AFAIK has never made it to CD. He also plays on at least one of Raney's early Prestige dates. I have a CRI label LP with an Overton classical work on it, Pulsations." It's dedicated to Monk and is definitely jazz-influenced, though not in any "jazzy" way. He wrote a lot of other things, including an opera based on "Huckleberry Finn," but "Pulsations" is all I've heard. I'll listen again and report back if there's anything worth adding.

[Larry Kart]

Overton's "Pulsations" is even better than I remembered. His final work, it's stylistically akin to Stefan Wolpe's great Quartet for Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone, Piano and Percussion (1950). It's for chamber ensemble (number of players not specified in the liner notes, but it sounds like about 12 -- maybe five strings [including both arco and pizzicato bass], two woodwinds, tpt., trb., piano, and percussion), lasts 17 minutes, and is based, says the composer, "largely on a strong, steady beat." Though I wouldn't call that beat "steady" by jazz norms, its definitely active at all times (again, akin to to the way Wolpe's Quartet works.) The piece seems more loosely knit than Wolpe's, but I think that was Overton's intent -- I especially like its enigmatic sotto voce conclusion -- and while there are a few moments that smack of the generic gestural modernism of the time, I'd say its a heck a lot more personal and potent than anything I've ever heard from, say, Charles Wourinen. Wish there were more Overton available, though I guess "Pulsations" isn't available now. At least it was recorded.

[birksworks]

I have a friend who asked me to turn him on to jazz. He has an extensive classical music collection. He's one of those guys who has 5 sets of the late Beethoven piano sonatas and claims he can tell the difference between them. (Me, too...but sometimes I wonder if our discernment is limited only to the broad strokes.)

So I lent him Brilliant Corners: minimalism, complexity, humor, invention. What could be better?

He didn't get it. Could this be a vitamin deficiency?

[Nate Dorward]

Larry--a belated note to say thanks for digging out Pulsations--that sounds fascinating...!

[Big Al]

Yes it's me, bringing up yet another old AOTW thread:

As a non-musician, it's hard for me to comprehend how difficult or otherwise it might be to play the music on "Brilliant Corners."

I guess the best way I can explain it, as someone who plays an instrument despite not being able to read music, is to try and hum along with the title cut. I've tried numerous times, and it still baffles me. I can't imagine how difficult it must've been to try and SOLO around that.

I will state, for the record, that Max's solo on this cut is my absolute favorite Max Roach drum solo, no small statement Icantellyou! Count me in as someone else who digs Roach on the tympani on "Bemsha Swing."

Anyone else dig the celeste on "Pannonica?" That song has a real Christmas-y feel to me.

[JSngry]

Yes it's me, bringing up yet another old AOTW thread:

As a non-musician, it's hard for me to comprehend how difficult or otherwise it might be to play the music on "Brilliant Corners."

I guess the best way I can explain it, as someone who plays an instrument despite not being able to read music, is to try and hum along with the title cut. I've tried numerous times, and it still baffles me. I can't imagine how difficult it must've been to try and SOLO around that.

That's a tune I've played a bit, and I can tell you that, like most Monk tunes, you can break it down into components which aren't really all that unusual. In this case, it's the old I-bVII7-bVI7-V7 (think "Topsy" or some such), that's the core harmonic motif of the song. Aside from that it comes in some relatively "uncommon" (in terms of "general usage"), hey, no big deal, right?

Wrong. The use of this core is not symmetrical. Monk throws in all sorts of harmonic "detours" that result in the changes themselves being easy enough to get a handle on, but not their placement in the form, their symmetry if you will. That's the part of that tune that's a real bitch, because as soon as you start into a phrase that you think is going to lay one way over the changes/bars, OOOPS, GUESS AGAIN! Up pops a pivot chord that sends it off somewhere else just for a bar or two before it comes back and/or starts over, and not where you need it to for your idea to kinda work anyway.

It's just struck me (literally) that perhaps, that's what the title is refering to, how the tune is a walk down a (harmonic) route that is full of unexpected yet ultimately logical "corners", corners that you have to make in order to stay on course, corners that come out of nowhere, at first seem illogical or even "dangerous" or "wrong" yet corners that ultimately get you to where you needed to get and in a highly, in retrospect. logical and "colorful" ("brilliant") fashion/

In a way, it's the Monkiest of Monk tunes (although I'd leave room on that list for "Work" and a few others, in that you have to be aware of the macro form at all times. It's not just enough to know where you are at any given monment, you gotta know where you came from and where you're going too, and all at the same time. You need to develop an acute awareness that where you are at any moment is never just that, it's part of an ongoing continuum that exists whether you realize or not, and will have its way whether you recognize it or not, becuase it's bigger and more unshakeable than just one person.

"Always Know" and "All Ways Know".

If that's not a metaphor for life and a definition of true hipness, then I don't know what is. It's no wonder that Monk survives, and its no wonder that a lot of people latch on to the superficialities for cachet, and its no wonder that people who go deeper with his music never find an end to the truths it reveals.

Edited November 25, 2007 by JSngry

[RubenH]

Greetings all,

I've got the K2 of BC and was wondering if the SACD hybrid that came out around 2004 improves on it in any noticeable way. If anyone's heard both and would like to offer an opinion, I'd appreciate it!

Regards