Marsalis plays Monk

[Milestones]

Just wondering what people make of the collaboration of Clark Terry and Monk: In Orbit. Oddly, it features just one Monk composition.

Edited February 14, 2015 by Milestones

[Steve Reynolds]

Still amazed that no one else has referenced ... Misha Mengeleberg ...

Mengelberg's solo album on BUZZ, entitled simply Solo, reminds me of Monk in places. But Mengelberg feels to me more like an extension of Monk, as if he's absorbed the Monk he's interested in, and then moved onward. His chops are deep and serious, but his playing also reflects, at times, a certain amount of sarcasm that, instead of coming off as humorous, to me just feels obnoxious. But that's just a personal reaction.

No, [Monk]s a great composer and a signal stylist who should be fair game for anybody.

Braxton would probably call Monk a "restructuralist" rather than a "stylist," though I think I get where Iverson's coming from. I can't say that Iverson's own playing has clicked for me, but I think, not unlike Wynton, he's an important ambassador for the music, which is not at all meant as damning praise.

I was referring to Misha/Han playing Monk's compositions

I'm no embedder of you tube files, but there are some wonderful performances of one looks - a real fine Criss Cross is out there for the viewing and listening.

[Larry Kart]

Just wondering what people make of the collaboration of Clark Terry and Monk: In Orbit. Oddly, it features just one Monk composition.

Love it, always have. Monk and Philly Joe!

[jlhoots]

Just wondering what people make of the collaboration of Clark Terry and Monk: In Orbit. Oddly, it features just one Monk composition.

Love it, always have. Monk and Philly Joe!

Me too!

Still amazed that no one else has referenced ICP - aka Misha Mengeleberg, Han Bennink, etc

Not surprised Iverson doesn't - as usual he is just a bit too smart for his own good. I like him but he doesn't know what he doesn't know

But what he does know, he knows.

[Steve Reynolds]

Just wondering what people make of the collaboration of Clark Terry and Monk: In Orbit. Oddly, it features just one Monk composition.

Love it, always have. Monk and Philly Joe!

Me too!

Still amazed that no one else has referenced ICP - aka Misha Mengeleberg, Han Bennink, etc

Not surprised Iverson doesn't - as usual he is just a bit too smart for his own good. I like him but he doesn't know what he doesn't know

But what he does know, he knows.

I agree with this. He is an excellent interviewer and I enjoy his perspective

For me, I'm unfamiliar with his music - so I'd like think I know there is so much I don't know. For whatever reason, I've never been motivated to listen to a The Bad Plus or related groups of his or ones that he plays with.

[Scott Dolan]

I've heard a few Bad Plus tunes, and just found them completely uncompelling.

[johnblitweiler]

Last Labor Day weekend in Albert Tootie Heath's trio, Iverson was quite an inventive bop pianist.

[John L]

One of my favorite non-Monk recordings of Monk's music is a duet of Bobby Hutcherson and Tete Montoliu, recorded in Koln in 1991. I don't know if it has ever been released on record, but the concert has circulated for a long time. There is a very satisfying playfulness to the approach that continually puts a smile on your face.

Edited February 14, 2015 by John L

[danasgoodstuff]

Ethan is, as usual, 'bout half insightful and half posturing twerp - yes, Monk's music is some serious shit and doing it justice takes some doing, beyond that...? Which still makes his blog way more interesting than most blogs or his music. On the sax v. trumpet Q, I'd say it's more the players than the horns, but woodwinds and brass are certainly different creatures, and great musicians (composers and players) can both use that and transcend it. And, for myself, there are certainly days I'd settle for half insightful or even piss-ant proficient, and Monk's music is strong enough to withstand even my inept assaults upon it. Which makes it almost as much of a joy to play as it is to listen to.

[Steve Reynolds]

About to listen to "Criss Cross" from ICP's "Weer is een dag voorbij" recorded 6/25/2005

Currently they be killing "Perdido"

[John L]

I also like the way that Misha Mengelberg and ICP play Monk.

[johnblitweiler]

Re Monk's comping: He did not comp. Like Ellington and Basie, he was an orchestra pianist, he believed his accompaniment duty was to provide color and / or rhythmic kick. According to Frankie Dunlap, I believe it was, Ellington was Monk's favorite pianist.

[Scott Dolan]

Um…OK...

[Teasing the Korean]

Ethan is, as usual, 'bout half insightful and half posturing twerp - yes, Monk's music is some serious shit and doing it justice takes some doing, beyond that...?

I disagree with at least two of the points he made. Monk's music is always "serious?" I am wrong for finding joy or humor in Monk's music?

And while, yes, Monk's music is rooted in the past, I see Monk ultimately as a futurist, and I file his albums along with other great futurists of music, including Raymond Scott and Esquivel. It may be an odd filing system, but it works for me.

[Scott Dolan]

I always thought Monk's music was as humorous and joyful as it came.

"Playful" is how I've described it in the past. Ornette and Dolphy's music could also be labelled as such.

[John L]

I see no contradiction. Monk's music was serious and humorous at the same time.

[jazzbo]

Ugly beauty!

[JSngry]

I see no contradiction. Monk's music was serious and humorous at the same time.

True, and in such a way that they were the same thing, which is different than the qualities being layered together. One of the biggest traps in Monk (which is not to say that he is a Trappist Monk, although if that works, so be it) is coming to terms with him at face value. You can go start looking for dissections, but unlike many musics where dissection leads to clarity, in Monk it ultimately leads to diffusion. There are no further explanations - what you hear is exactly what you're getting. It's a very rare type of genius, that is.

To bring it down to an exponentially lower plane, I watched a standup special the other night by this comedian named Earthquake (apparently well known, but hell, I stay home a lot, so I wouldn't know) called These Ain't Jokes. Well, they were, but a lot of times, they weren't, even when they were. The worst part of it was when they were jokes but weren't funny, but I don't think that was how he meant it.. But yeah, not a joke/still funny, "both" at once, not "and" playing peek-a-boo with each other.

But anyway, Earthquake = interesting(enough) comedic POV, Monk = master of musical physics.

[JSngry]

And while, yes, Monk's music is rooted in the past, I see Monk ultimately as a futurist...

I've come to accept Monk as neither traditionalist nor futurist, but instead as an eternalist. Truths not created (although exposed) or destroyable (at best/worst chosen to be ignored).

Always know, indeed.

[Teasing the Korean]

I see no contradiction. Monk's music was serious and humorous at the same time.

I see not contradiction either, but apparently that guy who was quoted sees a contradiction.

I've come to accept Monk as neither traditionalist nor futurist, but instead as an eternalist.

That is a nice outlook, but I will forever associate Monk with architecture and modernism. "Epistrophy" is like "Powerhouse Part 2" for me.

[Guy Berger]

I definitely didn't interpret Iverson as denying humor exists in Monk's music, and I thought his point (as well as that rant) was generally well taken. Many jazz performers engage only superficially with Monk's material, including its humorous aspect.

[jazzbo]

Recently I think of Monk as an iconoclast of melody--he seems to attack them and beat them into shape, whip them, distill them, chisel them, assign them to beats and insert vacuums. . . finally they are what they can be and they really can't be anything else. So much work seems to go into all his pieces and then. . . they're finished, resolute.

[TedR]

Re Monk's comping: He did not comp. Like Ellington and Basie, he was an orchestra pianist, he believed his accompaniment duty was to provide color and / or rhythmic kick. According to Frankie Dunlap, I believe it was, Ellington was Monk's favorite pianist.

I've previously posted a quote from Randy Weston about Monk, the pianist. My original post was accurate. Now I can't recall the exact wording. Anyway, during a preconcert interview discussing Monk's influence on Weston, RW said, when he first heard Monk's piano playing he thought "I can play better than that". Then as he heard and studied more of Monk's music, he realized that Monk used the piano less as a European concert instrument and more as a percussion instrument.

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, that's still comping.

[Larry Kart]

Yeah, that's still comping.

It's a fine point, perhaps, but I think that "comping" as it's normally understood grants to the instrumental soloist the key role in reacting to/reshaping as he deems his needs be the structure he is playing on, while the "comper" reacts to/effiiciently supports/suggests potentially fruitful future variations on the path that the instrumental soloist has embarked upon. Monk, by contrast, in effect "sees" the entire structure of the piece (whether it it his own or someone else's) as structure and responds to that structure in performance in an attempt to further and/or comment upon its "structure-ness." What he then actually plays alongside or underneath an instrumental soloist is based on the expectation/assumption the soloist will more or less share the same orientation (heightened? compositional? orchestral?) toward the piece's structure that Monk does.

Some soloists -- Lacy, or course -- so thoroughly incorporated that musical ethos that they proceeded along those lines even when Monk himself was not present. Others -- like Rollins, Lucky Thompson, Milt Jackson, Thad Jones, et al. -- pretty much fully grasped the message and gave us, with Monk at the piano and wielding a pen, collaborative masterworks. Miles also did so, of course, on the "Bag's Groove" date, but the experience apparently pissed him off. Others, like Rouse IMO, functioned like Monkian wallpaper for the most part -- making more or less decorative (but not structure-enhancing/elaborating ) Monk-like sounds. And so it goes.