Thelonious Monk - The Complete Prestige Recordings - 2000

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Thelonious Monk - The Complete Prestige Recordings - 2000

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Product Description: The Complete Prestige Recordings features sessions headed by Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Monk & Rollins and Miles Davis. Recorded between 1952 and 1954.

Digitally remastered using 20-bit K2 Super Coding technology.

There isn't much from Thelonious Monk's pre-1960s catalogue that isn't worth listening to, and though the pianist/composer's tenure at Prestige was fairly short-lived (1952-1954), and the output is less essential than either his Blue Note recordings or his definitive work for Riverside, this music is still outstanding. Disc One's first four tracks actually date back to 1944, when Monk made his first Prestige appearance as a sideman for Coleman Hawkins. From here the timeline jumps to sessions from '52-'53 that feature Monk in various ensemble configurations including quartets, quintets, and trios.
Top-drawer players–including bassist Percy Heath, tenor man Sonny Rollins, and drummers Max Roach and Art Blakey–appear on these dates, with the bold push-and-pull between Monk and Rollins making the biggest impression. Disc Three focuses on the one session that ever found Monk and trumpet legend Miles Davis sharing a studio (due to personal and aesthetic differences the two subsequently steered clear of each other), with excellent and sensitive playing all around. At three discs, THE COMPLETE PRESTIGE RECORDINGS might seem skimpy compared to other "complete" sets, but the size makes the listening quite manageable, and the caliber of the playing is consistently high throughout.

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Thelonious Monk - The Complete Prestige Recordings - 2000

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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.

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Thelonious Monk - The Complete Prestige Recordings - 2000

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Review: One of the primary incentives of box sets is the promise of previous unreleased material. Their comprehensive nature points facilitates (and often mandates) the inclusion of any and all extant recordings by an artist during a given time frame. Frequently such sweeping attention to discographical detail comes at the cost of playability. Verve’s exhaustive approach to the catalogs of Billie Holiday, Bill Evans and even Bud Powell are perfect cases in point, trading up playability for what sometimes seems like an excessive string of studio fragments and alternate takes. Fortunately this Fantasy set is small enough in scope and size to remain commodious both for the casual listener as well as the unrepentant Monk fanatic.
While this compendium of Monk’s transitional work for the Prestige label necessarily falls short in the ‘extras’ department it’s perhaps to be expected given the stature of it’s subject. The odds of a heretofore-unreleased Monk session or side languishing in some vault somewhere are inherently slim to none. In addition, all of the music is currently available on single disc releases and much of it overlaps with material found on other Prestige boxes by Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis. So these are the drawbacks, but what of the music? In a word, like most of what Monk crafted during his lifetime it’s near indispensable.
Stylistically speaking the majority of the music ranks in similar fashion to Coltrane’s work for the Atlantic label and visits the maestro in flux and prior to his career defining work for the Riverside label. Trane’s Atlantic albums demonstrate an artist in the process of transformation. So do these sessions when it comma’s to Monk’s music. The exceptions are the first four tracks on Disc One culled from a session with Coleman Hawkins that also just happened to be Monk’s first time in a recording studio. While an interesting example of the pianist in more protean form the real star of these numbers is Hawkins, though Monk still manages to turn in some ear-bending solos despite his sideman status. The most exciting moments of the set however unfold on his later sessions as leader. The initial trio session with Blakey and the obscure bassist Mapp refracts the rays of Bop through a Monkish lens on a series of then (and still) fresh originals and a pair of standards. Blakey’s big beat matches Monk’s craggy harmonic shapes like hand in glove while Mapp struggles to keep straight time beside them. Roach’s residency in the drum chair on the second half of the session is less overtly combustible, but just as effective.
The date from a year later with Rollins isn’t quite as cohesive thanks mainly to Watkins who was a last minute substitution for an absentee Copeland. Largely unfamiliar with the charts the French hornist makes the most of precarious position and still manages to turn out some wonderful phrases on his unwieldy brass. Rollins’ is far less reticent and smokes like a match on wet tinder, especially on the brush-fire version of “Let’s Call This.” The benchmark of the set though is the quintet date with Foster and Copeland. Though it was to prove Foster’s only record date with Monk the saxophonist seizes his sole opportunity, casts off inhibitions and dives his naked horn deep into the leader’s beautifully skewed harmonic ocean. Monk responds to the saxophonist’s fervor in kind sculpting a crafty series of solos that also serve to stoke the passions of his rhythm mates Russell and Blakey. Copeland’s in fine form too and the session sticks deliciously in the craw long after the music ceases.
The final three sessions on the set serve as a fine summation starting off with another trio outing with Blakey, moving through a Rollins-led quartet and finishing off with an all-star collective comprising half of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Miles, and the incomparable Klook on drums. The latter date ends up producing the most fire both in front of the mikes and behind the scenes thanks to a long-rumored altercation that supposedly went down between Monk and Miles. But whatever the particulars of the fleeting feud the music that survived that day hits a bullseye in terms of creativity especially during Monk’s now legendary solo on the first take of “Bags Groove.”
Today, pointing out the brilliance of Monk is like arguing that we live in a heliocentric galaxy, it’s a given fact, irrefutable and irreducible. But back when these sessions were waxed the evidence was less widespread. How much Monk is enough? That’s a question that can only be answered by the individual listener. But for folks who don’t have this material in its aforementioned previously available incarnations this box provides a convenient and stylish means of accessing it all in one place.

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Thelonious Monk - The Complete Prestige Recordings - 2000

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