This is my twelfth recording as a leader and I know
what you’re thinking - what’s with this guy and the theme albums? Yes,
I’ve done several. To me, they represent an opportunity to do something
unique, a special project as opposed to “regular” recordings which are
more representative of general repertoire or whatever songs (however
special they may be to me) I may be playing at the time of a recording
date.
When Jamey
suggested recording a CD of all Thelonious Monk compositions I was
immediately interested. I had been fooling around with several of Monk’s
tunes at the time, exploring the challenges of adapting Monk’s music to
the guitar. Foremost is what I see as being a dynamic balance which exists
in Monk’s own playing between lots and not much; dense voicings and tonal
clusters versus simply played triads, sections of rapidly moving chords as
opposed to places where little happens in a harmonic sense. In terms of
voicings, much of it simply does not translate to the guitar; it’s either
too spread out, too big, or too closely clustered. In terms of harmony,
these are the challenges and lessons unique to Monk’s writing that have to
be first confronted and then mastered no matter which instrument one
plays. Fun.
Each of these
songs is special. Let’s Call This, We See, and Monk’s Dream all exhibit
striking sections of no harmonic movement. Work is a wonderful example of
strong melodic writing that also serves to integrate the bass into the
playing of the melody. I’ve always been drawn especially to Monk’s ballads
(I recorded a medley of Monk’s Mood and Pannonica on a previous trio
album, entitled 9X3), and Ruby, My Dear and Reflections are among his most
expressive and moving. Humph (from what I believe to be Monk’s first
recording session as a later, dating to 1947) is rarely heard, but another
of the many I Got Rhythm variants which is good to improvise on. Brilliant
Corners is a challenge in every respect; tempo, harmony, rhythms, melody
and form. I can think of no other song in which the original tempo
quadruples as is the case here. I Mean You (which received it’s recording
debut on a 1946 Coleman Hawkins recording) is perhaps the most widely
played of all the tunes contained herein. I’ve heard that Eronel was in
fact composed by Sadik Hakim (for his girlfriend? wife? Lenore?), but due
to the fact that it’s been so widely credited to Monk, and that I like it
so much, I jumped at the chance to record it here.
Dennis Irwin
has played on six of my previous recordings. He’s a great musician, with
an approach to music, the sound of the bass, and a sense of swing, that
has influenced bassists, and other instrumentalists as well. Mickey Roker
has long been one of the greats of his instrument. Off the top of my head,
I know he’s performed and recorded with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie,
Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer, Lee Morgan, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson,
and the MJQ, to give an extremely short list (and is on two of my all time
favorite recordings - “Sonny Rollins On Impulse!”, and Phil Woods’s “The
Rite Of Swing”). Like Dennis, musicians the world over look up to him.
Our approach
has been to try and strip down or condense Monk’s compositions to what we
see as being the essentials, then use them as a means of “saying
something” in our own way. No attempt was made to mimic, reenact, parrot,
pick your favorite adjective, Monk’s own playing or approach to these
tunes. So, being “condensed” in a way, I feel there’s a lot of music on
this one hour CD. We hope you enjoy our excursion into the world of
Thelonious Monk.
Joshua Breakstone
- Jan.
'97
