Various Artists

Featuring: Steve Lacy, Carla Bley, Elvin Jones, Shockabilly, Dr. John, Chris Spedding, Joe Jackson, John Scofield, Roswell Rudd, Arto Lindsay, John Zorn, Don Was

condition (records/cover): NM / NM

Gatefold sleeve. Insert and obi included.

Hal Willner's tribute records were a genuinely new idea in 1984: take a composer's book, hand the pieces to musicians from completely unrelated worlds, and see what comes back. That's The Way I Feel Now is the Thelonious Monk volume and the guest list is gloriously incoherent - Steve Lacy, who had been playing nothing but Monk for two decades, alongside Donald Fagen, Dr. John, Carla Bley, John Zorn, Was (Not Was), Gil Evans and a good many others. Some of it is reverent, some of it is ridiculous, and the best tracks demonstrate exactly how durable these compositions are.

A&M double LP, gatefold. The record that invented the modern tribute album, and still one of the few good ones.