Thelonious Monk - Complete Prestige Recordings
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Thelonious MonkEdition: Music CD
Format: Box set
CD Release Date: 2000-08-22
Music Label: Prestige
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Flyin' Hawk
- Recollections
- Drifting On A Reed
- On The Bean
- Bye-Ya
- Monk's Dream
- Sweet And Lovely
- Little Rootie Tootie
- Bemsha Swing
- Reflections
- These Foolish Things
- Trinkle, Tinkle
- Think Of One (Take 1)
- Let's Call This
- Think Of One (Take 2)
- Friday The 13th
- We See
- Locomotive
- Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
- Hackensack
- Nutty
- Just A Gigolo
- Work
- Blue Monk
- I Want To Be Happy
- The Way You Look Tonight
- More Than You Know
- Bags' Groove (Take 1)
- Swing
- The Man I Love (Take 1)
- Swing Spring
- Bags' Groove (Take 2)
- The Man I Love (Take 2)
Free Music Notes for Complete Prestige Recordings
Free Music Review: Essential Monk
Hit: 5 Stars
Anyone curious about Thelonious Monk would be very interested in aquiring this 1952-1954 Prestige box set. For one thing, this is his complete recordings for Prestige already put together and digitally remastered with great new liner notes about the recording sessions for each album. I have never been this happy and pleased with a box set since I bought Bill Evans - "The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961."
Like many of the reviewers have stated already, Monk absolutely rips the keys apart on many of these tunes. It is by far one of the best representations of his piano playing than any other box set. Everything here is simply ear candy.
Here are all the musicans that appear on this box set: Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Frank Foster (tenor saxophone); Miles Davis, Ray Copeland (trumpet);Julius Watkins (French horn); Milt Jackson (vibraphone); Gary Mapp, Tommy Potter, Edward "Bass" Robinson, Curly Russell (bass); and Art Taylor, Denzil Best, Kenny Clarke, Willie Jones, Max Roach (drums).
Instead of buying these records individually, I would recommend going ahead and putting the money toward this set. I would also recommend this box set to anyone interested in hearing one of the true innovators of jazz.
This set also contains the only other version of one of my favorite Monk compositions "Locomotive," which also appears years later on his Columbia album "Straight, No Chaser."
If you like smoking piano jazz, then buy this today.
Complete Prestige Recordings Poster
Thelonious Monk's music is striking as much for its logic and lyricism as it is for its idiosyncrasy and peculiarity. It often recalls the Salvador Dali painting that looks like a murky portrait of the artist's wife from close up, but from a few yards away reveals the clear image of Abraham Lincoln. Take "We See," for instance: it sounds a bit odd on a micro level, but pan out and you hear a very appealing melody with the charm of a Tin Pan Alley standard. Monk was in on seven sessions for Prestige as a leader and sideman between October 1952 (after leaving Blue Note) and December 1954 (before bolting for Riverside). Prestige's initial LPs sliced and diced these sessions, so the chronological format of this three-CD box gives the music a welcome cohesion. Of the seven dates, four are particularly rewarding, all of them under Monk's leadership. The October 1952 trio session with trivia-question-answer Gary Mapp on bass and drummer Art Blakey yielded wonderful Monk compositions like "Bye-Ya" and "Monk's Dream." He returned to the trio format two months later (with Max Roach in Blakey's spot) and produced "Trinkle Tinkle," "Reflections," and "Bemsha Swing."The peak of Monk's Prestige tenure came in 1954. In May, he led a quintet through the originals "We See," "Locomotive," and "Hackensack" (plus "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"), and four months later, he brought in an exceptional trio (with bassist Percy Heath and Blakey) for readings of "Nutty," "Work," and "Blue Monk." His stunning solo version of "Just a Gigolo" from that session is a perfect illustration of his way of dissecting standards. It's telling that Blakey was the drummer on three of these four sessions. No one knew how to make Monk's quirkiness swing and flow as well as Blakey, who was able to be both proactive and responsive to Monk's unique vision. The box is rounded out by Monk's sideman work behind Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis, plus four 1944 bonus cuts in support of Coleman Hawkins (made for the Joe Davis label) that are pleasant curiosities offering proof of a young Monk's (and Hawkins's) open mind. Though not as celebrated (or consistent) as his other periods, Monk's Prestige tenure includes some of his greatest triumphs. --Marc Greilsamer
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