Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane 1957 (Revisited)
“Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way – through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them.“ – John Coltrane
Thelonious Monk Quartet: Live Five Spot 1958, Revisited
'Johnny Griffin came to Monk with a reputation as a speed demon – double-timing the tempo was his default mechanism, elaborating melodies with a mixture of mellow swing and complex bop phrasing. Their contrasting nature – Griffin’s fluid extravagance and Monk’s percussive dissections – intensi- fied by Roy Haynes’ forceful divisions of the beat, generate a tension unlike any of Monk’s subsequent groups' – Art Lange
Celebrating 75 Years Of His First Recordings
Thelonious Monk devised a new theoretical basis for his compositional aesthetic, an unorthodox, deconstructed and reinvented pianistic approach that defined his music’s unique rhythmic and melodic parameters. The piano was the vehicle of expression for his compositional mindset. - Art Lange