Two history-making deals were signed in New York for pennies on the dollar. The first was in 1626, when Peter Minuit (whose last name in French means “midnight") paid Native Americans $23 for Manhattan. The second came in March 1955, when Riverside Records producer Orrin Keepnews bought out Prestige's contract with Theonious Monk (composer of 'Round Midnight) for $108.27. All of the fruits of Orrin's deal (encouraged by Monk, who owed that amount to Prestige's Bob Weinstock) can be found on the new 15-CD box reissue of Thelonious Monk: Complete Riverside Recordings (Concord)—a box that has been out of print for years.
Originally issued in 1986 on 22 LPs, the Monk material, recorded between July 1955 and April 1961, appeared again in 1996 on a 15-CD set. The LP set won two Grammy Awards in 1987—one for best historic album and the second for best liner notes, written by Orrin. The newly re-issued CD set appears to use the 1996 digital transfers, but that's just conjecture, since there's scant information about what exactly was done for the re-issue. Fortunately, the box's booklet reprises Orrin's complete set of award-winning notes.
Orrin had an unusually close relationship with Monk that began with a meeting at a party in the late 1940s. Here's what Orrin told me in an interview in 2007 about signing Monk in 1955...
I had actually met Monk a good seven years earlier—right after Bill Grauer took over ownership of The Record Changer magazine and I became its managing editor. Early in 1948, Blue Note Records co-founder Alfred Lion, who just made his first records with Monk, decided to make use of the two kids who had published an editorial in their first issue declaring that The Record Changer would no longer be doggedly traditional but would begin paying attention to the new music of bebop.
So Alfred invited us to his home in Greenwich Village to meet Thelonious, listen to test pressings from that first session, and hopefully get us to write about Monk. It was the first time I had met the pianist or even heard his music. I was entirely impressed. [Photo above, from left, of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff]
It probably helped that the drummer on Monk’s first Blue Note date was Art Blakey (above), who was always a great combination with Thelonious and supplied a firm, aggressive beat that made the whole thing more accessible for me.
Immediately, with an approach that I later referred to as 'the arrogance of ignorance,' I dragged Monk off into a corner of Alfred’s huge living room and proceeded to interview him. I should have known that he was a major eccentric, and that he was quite likely to be entirely uncooperative. But somehow it worked. He talked quite freely, and I wrote a long feature article about just how good and interesting and original I felt he was. And then I had absolutely no contact with him for about seven years.
As for the newly re-issued Riverside box, the 153 tracks still provoke and challenge the listener, forcing the ear to meet Monk on his level. Initially, I was a bit disappointed that the CDs weren't featured in sleeves bearing the original album covers. Instead, the box is as it was—with discs in matching Jeep-gray covers and Jim Marshall's image of Monk's hand on the cover. To feature original albums and covers would have meant more discs, since the box holds valuable alternate takes, like the nearly 28-minute struggle to record 'Round Midnight. More discs and art would have meant a stiffer box price.
But as I listened to the material, I soon found myself gratified that the sleeves were generic. By leaving the listener in the dark about which album is on, the box is taken as one large, seven-year work, with various artists like Sonny Rollins, Gigi Gryce and John Coltrane boarding the Monk train along the way and disembarking several stops later. Also, album covers in box sets do have a funny way of segregating the art into rigid chapters rather than letting the music flow like one uninterrupted ribbon.
A few beefs: The booklet should have let the listener know whether the 1996 digital transfers were updated or whether the credit given to Shinobu Fukumoto and Nobuhiro Iwama is for the '96 box or a subsequent release of the material in Japan. A fresh set of ears on this material might have made the music on some tracks a little more distinct and round, and it would have erased the annoying crackle on the intro to Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are. Also mission is a full listing of all the Riverside albums included on the box as well as a clear sense of which tracks belong to which albums and the personnel on each. This seems rather basic.
Nevertheless, the box represents Monk's finest work as a leader. His Blue Note sessions were relatively green and rushed, his Prestige work often placed him in giants' shadows and his Columbia sessions that followed the Riverside dates were spotty. What Orrin understood about Monk was his eccentric personality and his poetry and that if you made suggestions and then left the pianist alone, the results would be deep, exciting and deliciously abstract.
JazzWax tracks: Complete Riverside Recordings (Concord) here.
JazzWax clip: One of my favorite tracks is Pannonica, recorded in October 1956. It featured Ernie Henry (as), Sonny Rollins (ts), Thelonious Monk (p,celeste), Oscar Pettiford (b) and Max Roach (d). Sonny with Monk is always breathtaking. Also interesting is how Monk laid out on Henry's solo...
Originally issued in 1986 on 22 LPs, the Monk material, recorded between July 1955 and April 1961, appeared again in 1996 on a 15-CD set. The LP set won two Grammy Awards in 1987—one for best historic album and the second for best liner notes, written by Orrin. The newly re-issued CD set appears to use the 1996 digital transfers, but that's just conjecture, since there's scant information about what exactly was done for the re-issue. Fortunately, the box's booklet reprises Orrin's complete set of award-winning notes.
Orrin had an unusually close relationship with Monk that began with a meeting at a party in the late 1940s. Here's what Orrin told me in an interview in 2007 about signing Monk in 1955...
I had actually met Monk a good seven years earlier—right after Bill Grauer took over ownership of The Record Changer magazine and I became its managing editor. Early in 1948, Blue Note Records co-founder Alfred Lion, who just made his first records with Monk, decided to make use of the two kids who had published an editorial in their first issue declaring that The Record Changer would no longer be doggedly traditional but would begin paying attention to the new music of bebop.
So Alfred invited us to his home in Greenwich Village to meet Thelonious, listen to test pressings from that first session, and hopefully get us to write about Monk. It was the first time I had met the pianist or even heard his music. I was entirely impressed. [Photo above, from left, of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff]
It probably helped that the drummer on Monk’s first Blue Note date was Art Blakey (above), who was always a great combination with Thelonious and supplied a firm, aggressive beat that made the whole thing more accessible for me.
Immediately, with an approach that I later referred to as 'the arrogance of ignorance,' I dragged Monk off into a corner of Alfred’s huge living room and proceeded to interview him. I should have known that he was a major eccentric, and that he was quite likely to be entirely uncooperative. But somehow it worked. He talked quite freely, and I wrote a long feature article about just how good and interesting and original I felt he was. And then I had absolutely no contact with him for about seven years.
As for the newly re-issued Riverside box, the 153 tracks still provoke and challenge the listener, forcing the ear to meet Monk on his level. Initially, I was a bit disappointed that the CDs weren't featured in sleeves bearing the original album covers. Instead, the box is as it was—with discs in matching Jeep-gray covers and Jim Marshall's image of Monk's hand on the cover. To feature original albums and covers would have meant more discs, since the box holds valuable alternate takes, like the nearly 28-minute struggle to record 'Round Midnight. More discs and art would have meant a stiffer box price.
But as I listened to the material, I soon found myself gratified that the sleeves were generic. By leaving the listener in the dark about which album is on, the box is taken as one large, seven-year work, with various artists like Sonny Rollins, Gigi Gryce and John Coltrane boarding the Monk train along the way and disembarking several stops later. Also, album covers in box sets do have a funny way of segregating the art into rigid chapters rather than letting the music flow like one uninterrupted ribbon.
A few beefs: The booklet should have let the listener know whether the 1996 digital transfers were updated or whether the credit given to Shinobu Fukumoto and Nobuhiro Iwama is for the '96 box or a subsequent release of the material in Japan. A fresh set of ears on this material might have made the music on some tracks a little more distinct and round, and it would have erased the annoying crackle on the intro to Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are. Also mission is a full listing of all the Riverside albums included on the box as well as a clear sense of which tracks belong to which albums and the personnel on each. This seems rather basic.
Nevertheless, the box represents Monk's finest work as a leader. His Blue Note sessions were relatively green and rushed, his Prestige work often placed him in giants' shadows and his Columbia sessions that followed the Riverside dates were spotty. What Orrin understood about Monk was his eccentric personality and his poetry and that if you made suggestions and then left the pianist alone, the results would be deep, exciting and deliciously abstract.
JazzWax tracks: Complete Riverside Recordings (Concord) here.
JazzWax clip: One of my favorite tracks is Pannonica, recorded in October 1956. It featured Ernie Henry (as), Sonny Rollins (ts), Thelonious Monk (p,celeste), Oscar Pettiford (b) and Max Roach (d). Sonny with Monk is always breathtaking. Also interesting is how Monk laid out on Henry's solo...
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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