Monk’s best (or your favorite) rhythm sections, and especially drummers?

[Gheorghe]

10 hours ago, Milestones said:

It's not clear to me just how much Blakey and Monk worked together live (and I did red Kelly's Monk biography a few years back), but I always found they connected really well--even brilliantly.  Art seemed to be the clear favorite drummer in the the Blue Note days, and there sure are some great performances.   They got together pretty often for quite awhile.  For instance, there is the 1954 (I think) "Blue Monk," which is as killer a piano/bass/drums track as I've eve heard.  Art was masterful on the essential Monk's Music album. I also like the record where Monk sits in with the Jazz Messengers.  

No question that Blakey was Monk´s favorite drummer on the early Blue Note sessions but I think those early BN still had very very rudimentary studio technics. I´m not an audiophile (how could I be with my hearing quite impaired aftef 50 years of playing and hearing loud music ? ) but you really don´t hear Blakey´s drums recorded properly on those sides. It sounds like those early demo tapes we kids made in the 70´s, putting a cassette recorder with one mike into the rehearsal room......

Ironically the first time I had heard Blakey recorded was the 1950 broadcasts with Bird, Fats and Bud, and ironically for such weak recording sound you really HEAR the wnole drum set very very well. 
 

But on the records of the Giant of Jazz and on the video of them, you really HEAR Blakey and it´s wonderful ! I´m still feeling sorry that I was not at their concert in Vienna, but in 1972 I was only 13 and it took me some more months to get in touch with jazz......., one year later hearing Miles live I was ready.....

[Milestones]

I'd have to look up the dates for my favorite tracks, but I know some of those Blue Note dates were in the early 50's.  I can hear Blakey's fine drumming quite well on tracks like "Straight No Chaser," and "Four in One."  He is also heard advantageously on the Prestige recordings that followed over the next 2-3 years.  

 

[felser]

Count me in for Ore and Dunlap.  That was the first Monk I ever heard, on Two Hours With Thelonious (a 2LP repackaging of the Riverside France and Italy recordings, picked up for like $.57 from a J.M. Fields cutout bin in the early 70's).

[Gheorghe]

14 hours ago, Milestones said:

I'd have to look up the dates for my favorite tracks, but I know some of those Blue Note dates were in the early 50's.  I can hear Blakey's fine drumming quite well on tracks like "Straight No Chaser," and "Four in One."  He is also heard advantageously on the Prestige recordings that followed over the next 2-3 years.  

 

Okay yeah, it´s possible that the early 50´s dates have better drum sound, but the late 40´s sessions have a terrible weak sound. The only one on which Shadow Wilson replaces Blakey, with Bags and even the great vocalist Kenny Hagood has such a weak and miserable sound that it´s barely enjoyable. 
The other one with Roach on drums is a bit better and the Prestige sessions have better drum sound, you are right ! 

[mikeweil]

8 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

 The only one on which Shadow Wilson replaces Blakey, with Bags and even the great vocalist Kenny Hagood has such a weak and miserable sound that it´s barely enjoyable. 

Listen to Shadow Wilson with Monk on this one:

https://www.discogs.com/release/1354471-Thelonious-Monk-Quartet-With-John-Coltrane-At-Carnegie-Hall

Edited May 23 by mikeweil

[Gheorghe]

15 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Listen to Shadow Wilson with Monk on this one:

https://www.discogs.com/release/1354471-Thelonious-Monk-Quartet-With-John-Coltrane-At-Carnegie-Hall

Of course I have this one. It was a must for me, I mean from the legendary collaboration between Monk and Trane there is not much recorded, I think I heard a tape once of Monk Quartet feat. Trane, but very very bad sound quality, but great music. 
So I was glad I found this record some years ago, actually during a time where I did not buy any more stuff from the past

[Gheorghe]

1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

That issue was "speed corrected" in this set -

I don´t know the cover, but is this the original BN, the one with Milt Jackson, John Simmons, Shadow Wilson and on two tracks Kenny Hagood ? I mentioned it earlier as an example of terrible weak recording quality, where you almost don´t hear the drums, I mean it seemed to be very very rudimentary recorded, you don´t hear Shadow Wilson´s specific cymbal sound and snare sound, some very essential trademarks of his playing. 

[mikeweil]

4 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

That issue was "speed corrected" in this set -

I know, but for Gheorghe the single CD probably is the better option. Looks to me that he was not aware this existed.

But I see he already has it.

Edited May 24 by mikeweil

[Gheorghe]

44 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

I know, but for Gheorghe the single CD probably is the better option. Looks to me that he was not aware this existed.

But I see he already has it.

Yeah I have it since I was a teenager. The 2 BN´s . But as a drummer/percussionist you sure will agree with me, that the drum sound is sub zero on that. Can´t enjoy it very much that way.....

[Milestones]

I never knew until I just looked it up that Shadow Wilson died in 1959 at the tender age of 39.

 

[Chuck Nessa]

8 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I don´t know the cover, but is this the original BN, the one with Milt Jackson, John Simmons, Shadow Wilson and on two tracks Kenny Hagood ? I mentioned it earlier as an example of terrible weak recording quality, where you almost don´t hear the drums, I mean it seemed to be very very rudimentary recorded, you don´t hear Shadow Wilson´s specific cymbal sound and snare sound, some very essential trademarks of his playing. 

Sorry, I was thinking of a different Monk/Coltrane issue.

[medjuck]

On 5/23/2024 at 6:10 AM, mikeweil said:

Listen to Shadow Wilson with Monk on this one:

https://www.discogs.com/release/1354471-Thelonious-Monk-Quartet-With-John-Coltrane-At-Carnegie-Hall

A great record.  IIRC it came out at about the same time as the Bird Town Hall session: a great year for discoveries. 

[John B Litweiler]

It 's way too bad that Wilbur Campbell never recorded with Monk.   He and Ware and Griffin had played in Monk's Chicago quartet in the mid-50s and Wilbur Campbell was even at the Monk's Music session when Monk was tired of waiting for Blakey to show up.   The band was about to record with Campbell when Blakey finally showed up.   Campbell's fire  and sensitivity and smarts were so special.

When I was young, Monk's Music made me a Wilbur Ware lover.