During the early years of Thelonious Monk's career, recording sessions were anything but abundant. His first captured performances (and "captured" is really the appropriate word in this case) were recorded at Minton's Playhouse in 1941, where he was the house pianist. In fact, jazz fan Jerry Newman took his recording machine to Minton's (the place where bebop was born), to tape some of his heroes, above all Roy Eldridge, Charlie Christian and Hot Lips Page. Monk just happened to be there, and we are extremely lucky that he was. The pianist's next recordings (which also marked his first official ones) were cut in 1944, and produced a mere four tracks with Coleman Hawkins. The subsequent entry in Monk's discography consists of a few amateur live recordings with Dizzy Gillespie's big band at the Spotlight Club in 1946, with the piano mostly off mike. 1947 was the year of Monk's first quintet and sextet recordings as a leader. From then to mid-1948, he made a wonderful set of recordings, presenting his own versions of his compositions (some of which, like "'Round Midnight", had already become well known from recordings by musicians like Cootie Williams, Dizzy Gillespie or the aforementioned Hawkins, to whom some of Monk's tunes were at first mistakenly attributed). On October 24, 1947, Monk also made his first solitary trio session, accompanied by Art Blakey on drums and Gene Ramey on bass. But sales were apparently not enough to sustain a regular recording career: there were no studio sessions in 1949 and only one during 1950, in which Monk participated as a sideman for a Charlie Parker record. He only cut one session in 1951 -this time with Milt Jackson- followed by the two 1952 trio sessions contained on this LP (which also includes a 1954 date in the same format). These were the first recorded versions by Monk of all of the compositions presented here. Considering the lack of recording opportunities, however, it can't be assumed that he composed all of them strictly for the 1952-1954 sessions. Some of them had been written many years prior, as Monk is known to have already composed many of his tunes by 1944. Other than the pianist's original compositions, the trio also performs two standards. Monk's only other version of "These Foolish Things" is a 1964 solo reading for Columbia. "Sweet and Lovely", on the other hand, was a tune frequently played by Monk in concerts with his quartet. The same can be said of "Just a Gigolo", the only piano solo of the sessions. Although that solo performance was included, the original LP excluded two trio tunes recorded during the 1954 trio session: "Nutty" and "Work". Both songs have been added here as a bonus, in order to present all three sessions in their entireties. |