1947 - October 15

Thelonious Monk Sextet – October 15 1947

 

The Record Changer March 1948 

Monk is finally beginning to be heard personally and musically. He has been a mystic background figure for years, alluded to by all the bop musicians as a great man, always unavailable, but felt as a powerful influence by everyone interested in modern music.  

Thelonious is a strange, melodious record, consisting of a simple theme, beautifully enlarged, That seems to be the key to Monk's playing—nothing startling to begin with, but that nothing is played with such individuality and freshness that it's amazing.  

The record begins with an arranged, sort of free harmony effect around Monk's sharp piano, and becomes a showcase for him. I don't think there's a cliché in the whole side. One of the high spots is a crazy bit which sounds like James P. Johnson gone mad.  

Suburban Eyes is more familiar, but full of Monk's subtle originality. The tune is good. The first solo is by Danny Quebec West (Ike Quebec's nephew) who is all of 17 years old. He plays fine alto—no inhibitions, plenty of ideas. A peculiar trumpet solo is worth listening to; Idrees Suliman doesn't sound like Dizzy or anyone else I know of.  

All the solos are interesting, and Monk's, at the end, is wonderful. The!onious has something, and I hope we hear a lot of it. (Blue Note 542) 

 

The Record Changer April 1948 Orrin Keepnews – Thelonious 

Modern music has been rolling along these past few years, converting a number of young jazz men and often making for them a good bit of money. Sometimes it seems like a very sincere, if immature and frenetic, jazz form; sometimes it gives off strong hints of un-artistic neurosis, shoddy, commercial power-politics and childish wiling. I have always been ready to concede, without too much enthusiasm. that be-bop might well have a bright future. but until recently had found nothing in it capable of commanding interest or respect.  

Very recently, however, what looks very much like the first ray of light has broken through the clouds. A thirty-year-old New York pianist named Thelonius Monk has out several band records (only four sides have been released as yet) containing music that is more interesting and worthy far more serious listening than anything else that has yet been produced by a modernist. Monk, who has been a legendary and little-known figure in be-bop circles, plays in a style that bears a strong superficial resemblance to standard bop. But there are indications that his music may represent a huge forward step towards discipline and coherence in this newest form of jazz.  
 
Comparison with past jazz greats is probably pointless; the various "schools" of jazz may go through similar periods of development, but each has its own peculiarities. However, it may serve to clarify Thelonius' relative position along the main stream of modern music to point out that he is engaged in developing an essentially original piano style, as men like Pine Top Smith and CowCow Davenport did for an earlier style. In his current record he has created band style molded around his own ideas and shaped to his own manner of playing, much as Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington did before him. 

Monk was unquestionably one of the very first to play in the modern style that came to be known as be-both In 1938, while playing in a quartet at Minton's, in Harlem, he and Drummer Kenny Clarke began "thinking" in that vein, and even before that Monk had been picking up a meager living by playing around town in his natural style —a strange style that most musicians found incomprehensible.  

For reasons to be touched on later, Monk's conception of jazz has developed along somewhat different lines than his Harlem contemporaries—stronger and more mature lines, in our opinion. Possibly because Thelonius is the first pianist with his own set of ideas to come along in a type of jazz thus far dominated by horn men like Parker and Gillespie, his recent sides are the first "modern" records in which the piano and the rhythm section play important roles, Monk, himself, complains that be-bop pianists have a habit of trying to imitate Dizzy's trumpet or Charlie's sax; a piano that fulfills a piano's function in the band is a rare thing, but Monk's strongly rhythmic style is pure piano, beautifully integrated into a unit with his bassist (Eugene Ramey on some sides, Edmond Gregory on others), and with a powerful, steady and complex drummer named Art Blakey.  

A great weakness peculiar to recorded jazz, and a weakness common to all schools, is the haphazard and casual business of bringing together men relatively unfamiliar with each other's styles in hastily-arranged pick-up session. Sometimes this produces great jazz; more often the product is rather disorganized music. Even if it includes great solo work, it still sounds like what it really is—a group of individuals playing in the same room. but not a band. On the occasions when units composed of men who understand each other's styles and ideas and peculiarities are able to get together, the results are likely to be superior, even if the individuals involved are not "all-stars." New Orleans jazz has many examples of this; the Ellington band is another case in point. Modern music thus far has been largely pick-up; the fact that TheIonius chose the men he wanted to work with, and rehearsed carefully with them, may be a major reason why his current records are an outstanding example of unified small band jazz, and sound purposeful and coordinated instead of like a cutting duel between comparative strangers.  

Unfortunately, it seems to have been easier for Thelonius to find rhythm men able to adapt themselves to his style than to find suitable horns. Trumpet and tenor sax on his current sides are played by men who seem too steeped in standard be-hop; their solos sometimes fail to follow the complex pattern being established by the rhythm unit, and the ensembles tend, on occasion, to fall into standard bop clichés. But one man, a seventeen-year-old alto player named Danny Quebec (nephew of Ike Quebec), does some remarkable work. He has a firm, clear, driving style. and, apparently because he is young enough not to have fallen into current stylization, he is able to coordinate with the line along which Monk's playing moves. 

Whether Monk is to become "great," and whether his music is really as far from the beaten path of be-bop as I believe it is, are things that only time and continued playing can prove. But, as of this moment,  
considering only the present batch of far-from-perfect records turned out by this still-young jazz man. these points stand out:  

Thelonius is a talented musician, with a fertile imagination and a firm rhythmic sense; his band jazz has a feeling of unity, warmth, and purpose that contrasts sharply with the emotionless. jittered-up pyrotechnics of 52nd Street "modernism." And—although this is a point that cannot be proved in writing, but only heard in the music—he is capable of a sly, wry, satiric humor that has a rare maturity. Monk's playing may be considered as "neurotic" as the rest of the jazz produced in the '40s, but it at least serves to indicate that the music of a neurotic era docs not necessarily have to be a collection of cold, rhythmless and pointless sounds.  

One of the principal reasons for TheIonius' "differentness," aside from the man's own probable genius, can be found in the way that choice and necessity have combined to keep him on the fringes of the be-bop movement. Born in the semi-isolated Negro district near the Hudson River in New York's West Sixties, he has lived there, away from Harlem, ever since. Monk started taking piano lessons at eleven, and two years later was playing solo dates at local parties and speakeasies. From the first, he says, "no written music sounded right" to him, although he obviously listened intently to the Ellington band of that day. His unconventional style and his unwillingness to play standard orchestra piano kept him from band jobs and led him to develop his style his own way. Those early years were undoubtedly not pleasant ones; Monk is a quiet, self-contained and soft-spoken fellow, who doesn't seem too anxious to recall those first jobs in "juice joints," where he made $17 a week, and where people kept wanting him to "play straight."  

"There are a lot of things you can't remember—except the heckling," he says. 

Finally, in 1938, he went into Trumpeter Joe Guy's quartet at Minton's. In those days, when "'everybody was sounding like Roy Eldridge," he and Kenny Clarke began "thinking out" the style that was to be promoted into a big thing called be-bop. ("Thinking" is a word Monk uses a lot in talking about his music, and to me the word seems fitting.) A great many men drifted into Minton's and into that style in those days: Charlie Christian, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie (whom Monk remembers as having been there only "very rarely"), Charlie Parker.  

In 1940 Thelonius recorded an album with Hawkins, on the Joe Davis label. It's interesting to note that, although the balance and the arrangements on those sides were set up to feature only the Hawk, what can be heard of Monk's playing is in the same vein as it is today. Not as sure or as forceful, perhaps, but clearly along the same lines. Then came two years with Hawkins' band, in Chicago and on the West Coast, which meant that he was not on hand during the period when "be-bop' (which incidentally is a term he dislikes) was first being stylized and strongly plugged.  

Then he returned to New York and comparative obscurity. Always appreciated by fellow musicians (like Mary Lou Williams, Ellington, Nat Cole—who says he sat "'spellbound" the first time he heard TheIonius), but never quite in harmony with the kind of jazz that was being sold, he was completely without the qualities of showmanship and self -promotion in which so many others abound. A careful craftsman and an artist, he is obviously not a man who would be at his best in a quick recording session or be happy playing chords on a six-night-a-week job with an outfit that considered the piano a half-necessary background for some free-wheeling horn men.  

His current sides, on which his particular variation of modern music is played with varying degrees of success, but with not-infrequent greatness, may or may not move him from obscurity to a position as a big name and big influence in modern jazz. But they do show that at least one modernist is capable of a maturity and soundness and brilliance that leaves room for much optimism for the future of jazz. 

 

Herbie Nichols – Rhythm July 1946 Volume 1 Issue 1 

IN THIS ARTICLE I will tell you of a very rebellious person who has succeeded in reaching an enviable position among jazz musicians. This fellow aroused my interest many years ago when he first played at an uptown spot called Minton's. It is only now that I've sought a more personal contact with his greatness. This fellow happens to be the elusive Thelonious Monk, pianist, songwriter and mad lover of jazz.  

Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker, whose musical offerings also entertain me quite fully, will also attest  
to the independent mind that Monk possesses. This in itself should arouse one’s curiosity about the man's music. 

I would claim that the reason why Monk does not play in any combination with these two gentlemen is all a matter of tempo. This fellow seems to find his greatest pleasure playing in a slow tempo. He almost borders on the lethargic and may well be a key to his total personality. Monk has to be in a great mood before he will swing out in a fast tempo, and he can swing as effectively as any I know. However, for the most part the faster tempos of Dizzie and Yardbird find him lost, without expression and constitutionally overwrought. 

In his renditions he reminds me of Duke Ellington. His expressive and soulful figures are a reminder of Duke. This is where the similarity ends as you will find. Monk's rebellious spirit through the years has not permitted him to gain the all around experience of an Ellington and so his enterprise has suffered. 

It is strange to review how expressive such masters and lovers of slow tempos as Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins really are. 

A few weeks ago I made a call at his 63rd Street apartment and found him practicing very thoughtfully on his Klein piano. l felt pretty good when I realized how satisfied he was with his instrument. He invited me to try it out. First I played one of his compositions which I learned a few weeks ago at the Spotline which he had played with "Hawk." Later I played some of my tunes which he seemed to like. We promptly agreed to swap three piano arrangements of our tunes. I would arrange “Stratosphere,” "Striving,” and “Sailing” for him and he agreed to arrange “Ruby, My Dear,” “’Round Midnight,” and another very expressive tune which he hadn't named or whose name he had forgotten. On the day of the proposed swap my tunes were the only ones completed. However, I haven't given up hope of eventually learning his tunes which I will play morning, noon and night.  

One might say that Thelonious Monk is forever having a battle of music at the piano and always comes
out the winner. This is probably true. His eyes light up when he speaks of instrumentalists getting the right "sounds" out of their instruments. He is forever searching for better “sounds,” as he loves to say.  
He doesn't seek these effects elsewhere. He creates them at his Klein piano. This way of thinking throughout the years has resulted in the creation of a system of playing which is the strangest I have heard and may someday revolutionize the art of swing piano playing. 

For the past few weeks Monk has been out of work and he let me know that he was completely dissatisfied with the meager gold offered him. He said that the leaders ought to “let everybody live. Pay a fellow a good price especially when someone can really blow.” And there you have it, folks.  

Whatever his plans happen to be, they are a complete mystery to me. Monk travels in his own little world getting a greater kick out of his Klein piano than he does out of the whole jazz industry.  

Hearing his piano rendition of his composition, "Ruby, My Dear," is one of the greatest pleasures I’ve had listening to jazz.  This song could be another “Body and Soul,” if he would only put it down on paper and let a few other people learn it. Some of his other new and old compositions are “You Needn’t,” What Now," and "Y Don't U Try Now." To my mind all of these tunes are strange and worthy creations. 

Thelonious Monk is one more jazz purist who believes that the rhythm section is the most important section of the band. The recent Coleman Hawkins rhythm of Denzil Best, Monk, pianist, Monk, threw up his hands and said that he could only rationalize the man's strange oddness by speculating as to his foreign birth. As far as I know, Monk has been a New Yorker ever since he was a kid, although he might well tell you that he was born in Egypt. On the other hand this possible explanation might clear up quite a few things at that. 

Bill Gottlieb - Down Beat 24 September 1947 Volume 14 Issue 20 

New York—I have interviewed Thelonius Sphere Monk. 

It’s not like having seen Pinetop spit blood or delivering the message to Garcia. But, on the other hand, it’s at least equal to a scoop on the true identity of Benny Benzedrine or on who killed Cock Robin. 

Thelonius, the George Washington of be-hop, is one elusive gent. There’s been much talk about him — about his pioneering role at Minton’s, where bebop began...about his fantastic musical imagination...about his fine  piano playing. But few have ever seen him, except for people like Dix and Mary Lou, I didn’t know anyone else who had seen very much of him, either. 

Come to think of it, I had seen him once, at the club where Dizzy’s band was working some time ago. Even without his music. which was wonderful, you could recognize his cult from his be-bop uniform: goatee. beret and heavy shell classes. only his were done half in gold. 

I listened in fascination until he got up from the keyboard. “And who,” I finally inquired, “was that bundle of bop?” 

“Why, Thelonious Monk.” 

But by that time the quarry had disappeared 

Finally, through the good offices of Mary Lou Williams I was arranged with Thelonius. In order to take some pictures in the right setting, we went up to Minton’s Playhouse at 208 W. 118th St. 

In the taxi, on the way up, Thelonius spoke with singular modesty. He wouldn't go on record as insisting HE started be-bop; but, as the story books have long since related, he admitted he was at least one of the originators. Yes, he continued, verifying the oft told tale, it all began up at Minton’s in early 1941. 

Orchestra leader Teddy Hill had broken up his great orchestra because of problems brought on by the draft, poor transportation facilities and the like. He had bought into the tavern owned by Morris Milton (who had been the first colored delegate to the New York local of the musicians’ union). Teddy eventually took over active management and instituted a policy of good music. 

As a starter, Teddy called together some of the boys who had played in his last band, including John Birks Gillespie (by then with Calloway), and Joe Guy, trumpets, and Kenny Clarke, drums. There was also Nick Fenton on bass. Monday night was the big night at Minton’s. Bandleaders like Goodman, Dorsey and Johnny Long would come in to visit. And practically every jazz man of merit in town sat in at one time or other. Charlie Parker, who had come to New York with the Jay McShann ork, appeared often and became a regular at Minton’s. 

“Be-bop wasn't developed in any deliberate way,” continued Theloinius. “For my part, I'll say it was just the style of music I happened to play. We all contributed ideas, the men you know plus a fellow called Vic Couslen, who had been with Parker and Al Hibbler in the McShann band. Vic had a lot to do with our way of phrasing. 

“If my own work had more importance than any other's, it’s because the pinao is the key instrument in music. I think all styles are built around piano developments. The piano lays the chord foundation and the rhythm foundation, too. Along with bass and piano, I was always at the spot and could keep working on the music. The rest, like Diz and Charlie, came in only from time to time, at first.” 

By the time we'd gotten that far, we had arrived at Minton’s where Thelonius headed right for the piano. Roy Eldridge, Teddy Hill and Howard McGhee dropped around. McGhee, fascinated, got Thelonius to dream up some trumpet passages and then conned Theionius into writing them down on some score sheets that happened to be in the club. 

Teddy Hill began to talk. Looking at Thelonius Monk. he said: “There, my good man, is guy who deserves the most credit for starting be-bop. Though he won't admit it, I think he feels he got a bum break in not getting some of the glory that went to others. Rather than go out now and have people think he's just an imitator, Thelonius is thinking up new things. I believe he hopes one day to come out with something as far ahead of bon as bop is ahead of the music that went before it. 

He’s so absorbed in his task he’s become almost mysterious. Maybe he’s on the way to meet you. An idea comes to him. He begins to work on it. Mop! Two days go by and he’s still at it. He's forgotten all about you and everything else but that idea. 

While he was at it, Teddy told me about Diz, who worked in his band following Roy Eldridge. Right off, John Birks G. showed up at rehearsal and began to play in an overcoat, hat and gloves! For a while, everyone was set against this wild maniac. Teddy nicknamed him Dizzy. 

“But he was Dizzy like a fox. When I. took my band to Europe, some of the guys threatened not to go if the frantic one went, too. But it developed that youthful Dizzy, with all his eccentricities and practical jokes, was the most stable man of the group. He had unusually clean habits and was able to save so much money that he encouraged the others to borrow from him so that he'd have an income in case things got rough back in the states!” 

Idrees Suliman and Thelonious Monk

Photo by Francis Wolff

Screenland April 1948 Volume 52 Issue 6 

THELONIOUS MONK: D’ya ever hear that name, Thelonious Monk? Well, you will ’cause he’s the best known and most admired guy among modern musicians as the originator and genius of “Be-bop.” T.M. is a very elusive character and could never be held in one place long enough to be recorded until Blue Note records took enough interest to practically live with him until they waxed a goodly portion of his amazing efforts. These are the first solo efforts of “The Monk” on wax, “Thelonious” and “Suburban Eyes.” Guy’s completely original and loaded with radical harmonies. On this cookie he surrounds himself with young musicians who are in the same groove, making for a brace of superb faces. (Blue Note) 

Ira Gitler – BLP 1510/11 Liner Notes 

Volume 2 (BLP1511) has five tracks from the Forties. Suburban Eyes, written by tenorman Ike Quebec, and Evonce, a Quebec-Idresse Suliman collaboration, feature Quebec's cousin Danny Quebec West on alto, the Dexter Gordonish (of that time) tenor of Billy Smith and the pungent trumpet of Idresse Sulman in addition to Monk. Suliman has only started to be appreciated recently. This group can be heard on Humph and Thelonious in Volume 1. 

Bob Blumenthal – Genius of Modern Music Volume One RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes – 2001 

Saxophonist Ike Quebec, a Blue Note leader and adviser to Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, was instrumental in bringing the elusive Monk to the label’s attention. Quebec had a hand in two of the four compositions recorded at the initial session of October 15, 1947, and his 17-year-old cousin Danny Quebec West is heard on alto sax. West and tenor saxophonist Billy Smith are remembered only for their participation in these performances, while trumpeter Idrees Sulieman, bassist Gene Ramey and drummer Art Blakey are more significant contributors to jazz history. (The drummer would begin his own career as a Blue Note leader before the year was out.) The music created at this and the following sessions is programmed with master takes first, in the order of their recording, followed by any alternate takes. 

“Humph,” erroneously credited to Ike Quebec as co-composer on its initial release, is a thoroughly Monkish reworking of the familiar “I Got Rhythm” chord sequence. The line seems to poke fun at the typically skittish bebop themes of the time, though in a thematically extension of the main melodic phrase into the bridge that would become a Monk signature. Blakey gets a couple of drum breaks, with full solo choruses by West, a confident and Gillespie inspired Sulieman, Smith (showing allegiance to Dexter Gordon) and Monk. The ideas in the piano solo would reappear years later in several versions of the more famous “Rhythm-a-ning” 

“Evonce,” by Quebec and Sulieman, is a good line on an interesting harmonic scheme that borrows from “‘S’wondertul” for its main phrase and “Just You, Just Me” (a Monk favorite) on the bridge. The slower alternate take was recorded first, and features a full 48 bars of Sulieman after West’s half-chorus. Alto and trumpet each take a full chorus on the master, with Smith and Monk splitting the final improvised chorus on both performances. All except Smith turn in better work on the master. 

Ira Gitler - Thelonious Monk – The Complete Genius Liner Notes BN-LA-579-H2 1975 

Monk's first record date for Blue Note is singular for its inclusion of two lines by tenor man Ike Quebec, one a collaboration with trumpeter Idrees Sulieman who, as Leonard Graham, had recorded with Ben Webster and played with Big Sid Catlett on 52nd Street in 1946. Alto saxophonist Danny Quebec West was Ike's cousin; this is his only own prominent appearance on record. Tenor saxist Billy Smith was unabashed disciple of Dexter Gordon who had obviously listened hard to Dex's Savoy recordings of the time. 

Thelonious is remarkable (or what Monk fashions from one note — an entire piece. The "stride" segment of Monk's solo shows his roots and linkage to the pianists of an earlier Harlem era: Ellington, Willie the Lion and James P Johnson. But he manages to insert Salt Peanuts! 

Humph sounds like our old friend, I Got Rhythm, Sulieman, one of Gillespie's early followers was still close to Diz at this point in his career but he already had his own things happening, and his time conception is relaxed where Taitt's was stiff. Monk's solo is amazing for its rhythmic bite. And dig his bridge — a marvel. 

Quebec's Suburban Eyes is an engaging takeoff on All God's Chillun Got Rhythm. Sulieman is in fine form here and on Evonce (his and Quebec's joint effort), whose harmonic structure sounds familiar but somehow eludes me. It is interesting, but on these two numbers, not of his own devising, Monk sounds more like sideman rather than leader. 

On the trio date of October 15, 1947, falling between the Thelonious session and the 'Round Midnight date, you can really get at elemental Monk and some of his classic compositions: Off Minor; Ruby My Dear; and Well You Needn't. I had the 78 of Ruby My Dear at college. I'd put it on the turntable of my portable phonograph which would be situated on the floor next to my bed. All I would then have to do was drop my right arm (or my left if I was on my stomach) when the record was over and replace the tone arm at the first groove. I remember listening to Ruby ten times at a clip that way. Not that we should overlook the intriguing Introspection just because it has been less celebrated, or the personal interpretations of Vernon Duke and George Gershwin, respectively. 

Metronome April 1948 “Thelonious," as the title might imply, is virtually all Thelonious. Parts of it are a perfect example of an ancient piano style which sounds like the forerunner Of Fats Waller Art Blakey' cymbal drumming is tasty. On "Eyes," a fast, clean, bop affair, the ball is carried to advantage by Idrees Sulieman's trumpet, Danny Quebec West's alto and Billy Smith' tenor. Monk's piano nullifies this capable trio's efforts. Ramey's bass and Blakey's drums are impressive.

Saturday Review 28 February 1948 Volume 31 Issue 9

The elusive Thelonius Monk (until a short while ago it was even impossible to get a picture of him) has finally been adequately captured on wax. Often given credit for being one of the founders of the bebop movement, his pianistic endeavors are not exactly earth-shaking. Still the first side is oddly affecting with piano figures against a rather out-of- place Kansas City rhythm section.

Michael Cuscuna – More Genius of Thelonious Monk – BNJ-61011 Liner Notes Tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec, who from 1944-46 had recorded 5 superb sessions as a leader for Blue Note, was the man who convinced Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff to move into modern jazz. One of his favorite musicians was Monk. For Monk's first date, Quebec contributed two originals. "Evonce", co-written with Idrees Sulieman, and "Suburban Eyes". One wonders why Monk, with so many originals already written, would use someone else's material on his first date, but he must have genuinely like these tunes, because he often played "Suburban Eyes" live during this period. The alternate take of "Evonce" is the second of five taken. The master was the fifth one. Here the tempo is slower and the format was to have been alto sax and trumpet splitting one chorus, followed by tenor sax and piano splitting the next. But Sulieman gets lost during his 16 bars, and he ends up taking a whole other chorus to get his bearings while the band follows him. Billy Smith's tenor solo here is better and more graceful than the original master. And Monk takes a very different solo that starts off with a rhythmic phrase from "Thelonious". The master of "Suburban Eyes" was the second take, while this alternate is the third and final take. On the alternate, Monk's solo seems more fluid, the alto seems to be taking more chances and the trumpet is stronger and more confident.

Session Information 

Idrees Suliman, trumpet; Danny Quebec West, alto sax; Billy Smith, tenor sax; Thelonious Monk, piano; Eugene Ramey, bass; Art Blakey, drums. 

WOR Studios, NYC, October 15, 1947 

BN308-2, Humph, Blue Note 560, BLP 5009, BLP 1510, BN-LA-579-H2 

BN309-1, Evonce (alt), BN-LA-579-H2 

BN309-4, Evonce, Blue Note 547, BLP 1511, BN-LA-579-H2 

BN310-1, Suburban Eyes, Blue Note 542, BLP 5009, BLP 1511, BN-LA-579-H2 

BN310-2, Suburban Eyes (alt), BN-LA-579-H2 

BN311-0, Thelonious, Blue Note 542, BLP 5002, BLP 1510, BN-LA-579-H2