Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
Price : $18.98
Album Description Australian pressing. This never-before heard jazz classic documents one of the most historically important working bands in all of Jazz history, a band that was both short-lived and, until now, thought to be frustratingly under-recorded. The concert, which took place at the famed New York hall on November 29, 1957, was preserved on newly-discovered tapes made by Voice of America for a later radio broadcast that were located at the Library of Congress in Washington DC earlier this year. Blue Note. 2005.
2010-05-25 Jazz Duo Rocks! I ordered Thelonius Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall because I had been reading Michael Connelly's Echo Park and his protagonist Detective Harry Bosch's enjoyment of the album piqued my interest. No stranger to Monk and Coltrane, I had never knowingly heard them together and the passages in Connelly's book made me realize that it might be time to educate myself further. This CD is art for the ears...excellent call by Connelly to weave it into the story. While I wouldn't trade the album I received for anything, I was a bit disappointed to find that it didn't carry the "Detective" number that Bosch specifically mentioned being partial to in the book; kind of like going to Disneyland and choosing a day when The Pirates of the Carribbean ride was down for cleaning. You can be sorry you missed the experience but you can't say you didn't have a GREAT day there and it gives you a big reason to go back. Start to finish, I love each part. The price was more than comfortable and I didn't wait long for delivery. I whole-heartedly recommend it.
2010-05-17 Go With the Flow. Give It Five Stars Like Everybody Else ... ... but honestly, except for stunning moments, this is not my favorite recording of either pianist Thelonius Monk or saxophonist John Coltrane, who collaborated for a brief six months. First of all, the sound quality really isn't so great; rather than warm and 'present', it's somewhat metallic and distant, just what one might expect amid the hard corners and squared seats of a concert hall rather than a club. I can't help hearing the sedate silence of a Carnegie Hall audience in this performance, in a kind of careful formalization of supposedly improvised licks played for the approbation of ticket-buyers. Hey, maybe I'm just projecting, but I don't 'hear' Monk or 'Trane discovering each other on this stage.
And then ... I'll crawl way out on the limb, with a saw in each hand, and say that Coltrane and Monk were not a match made in musical heaven. Monk was the coolest of the hot and Coltrane was the hottest of the cool. Monk was the most cerebral bebopper of all, even more abstract in his stylings than Lenny Tristano. His enormous hands and his awareness of his technical weaknesses served his spare, aloof phrasing perfectly. The best few minutes on this CD are Monk's solo explorations of tonality on the first track, his own composition "Monk's Mood". He finds his way through a thicket of chromaticism worthy of Gesualdo or Bach. Coltrane, for all his signature flurries of freedom, was at heart a melodist, a balladeer with spasms of frantic energy. His most engrossing choruses on this CD, for me, come on the up-tempo tracks, especially "Sweet and Lovely". Monk and Coltrane could contrast brilliantly but they couldn't coalesce.
2010-02-04 Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane The two title names whould be enough, and thank God for remastering! It doesn't even take a jazz fan to appreciate the artistry and musicality of this recording.
2009-11-11 Definitive Jazz At last I have found accessible jazz. I have been looking for something like this for years. Always wanted to listen to some jazz but was unlucky with the selections. This is perfect. Just pop on the CD and kick back and relax.
2009-10-31 Really Moving To think that this recording was made 50 years ago is just astounding. The ideas still sound new and alive. Pure magic. I do not have deep knowledge of jazz. Despite this, this recording is really accessible to me.
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I ordered Thelonius Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall because I had been reading Michael Connelly's Echo Park and his protagonist Detective Harry Bosch's enjoyment of the album piqued my interest. No stranger to Monk and Coltrane, I had never knowingly heard them together and the passages in Connelly's book made me realize that it might be time to educate myself further. This CD is art for the ears...excellent call by Connelly to weave it into the story. While I wouldn't trade the album I received for anything, I was a bit disappointed to find that it didn't carry the "Detective" number that Bosch specifically mentioned being partial to in the book; kind of like going to Disneyland and choosing a day when The Pirates of the Carribbean ride was down for cleaning. You can be sorry you missed the experience but you can't say you didn't have a GREAT day there and it gives you a big reason to go back. Start to finish, I love each part. The price was more than comfortable and I didn't wait long for delivery. I whole-heartedly recommend it.
2010-05-17 Go With the Flow. Give It Five Stars Like Everybody Else ...
... but honestly, except for stunning moments, this is not my favorite recording of either pianist Thelonius Monk or saxophonist John Coltrane, who collaborated for a brief six months. First of all, the sound quality really isn't so great; rather than warm and 'present', it's somewhat metallic and distant, just what one might expect amid the hard corners and squared seats of a concert hall rather than a club. I can't help hearing the sedate silence of a Carnegie Hall audience in this performance, in a kind of careful formalization of supposedly improvised licks played for the approbation of ticket-buyers. Hey, maybe I'm just projecting, but I don't 'hear' Monk or 'Trane discovering each other on this stage.
And then ... I'll crawl way out on the limb, with a saw in each hand, and say that Coltrane and Monk were not a match made in musical heaven. Monk was the coolest of the hot and Coltrane was the hottest of the cool. Monk was the most cerebral bebopper of all, even more abstract in his stylings than Lenny Tristano. His enormous hands and his awareness of his technical weaknesses served his spare, aloof phrasing perfectly. The best few minutes on this CD are Monk's solo explorations of tonality on the first track, his own composition "Monk's Mood". He finds his way through a thicket of chromaticism worthy of Gesualdo or Bach. Coltrane, for all his signature flurries of freedom, was at heart a melodist, a balladeer with spasms of frantic energy. His most engrossing choruses on this CD, for me, come on the up-tempo tracks, especially "Sweet and Lovely". Monk and Coltrane could contrast brilliantly but they couldn't coalesce.
2010-02-04 Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane
The two title names whould be enough, and thank God for remastering! It doesn't even take a jazz fan to appreciate the artistry and musicality of this recording.
2009-11-11 Definitive Jazz
At last I have found accessible jazz. I have been looking for something like this for years. Always wanted to listen to some jazz but was unlucky with the selections. This is perfect. Just pop on the CD and kick back and relax.
2009-10-31 Really Moving
To think that this recording was made 50 years ago is just astounding. The ideas still sound new and alive. Pure magic. I do not have deep knowledge of jazz. Despite this, this recording is really accessible to me.