Description
The late jazz icon's 1947 album. These two volumes represent the finest collection of Thelonious Monk to be found anywhere with lucid examples of his work from both the 1940s and '50s. Vol. 1 contains recordings culled from the mid and late-'40s.
There is the sombre beauty of the already immortalized "'Round About Midnight," the percussive, provocative minority of "Off Minor," the sentiment without sentimentality of "Ruby My Dear," the unflaggging freshness of "Well You Needn't," the Monk in Paris in April of "April In Paris," the questioning beauty of the heretofore unreleased Introspection, the humor and ingenuity of the one-noted Thelonious and the marvelous harmonic and rhythmic interplay between Milt Jackson and Monk on "Epistrophy" (written by Monk and Kenny Clarke), "I Mean You" (a theme borrowed by Gerry Mulligan for his "Motel"), and "Misterioso."
