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Thelonious Monk
Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival
(Monterey Jazz Festival/Concord)
#9 Boxed Set/Live Album/Music DVD for 2007
First Appeared in The Music Box, November 2007, Volume 14, #11
Written by Douglas Heselgrave
Sun November 11, 2007, 08:40 AM CST
Thelonious Monk created a musical universe that was all his own. As playful
as a Dr. Seuss ballet, the language of melody and rhythm Monk employed was
audacious and challenging, and for many, it remains an acquired taste. Largely
self-taught, Monk obviously didn’t feel constrained by convention. Using
phrases, chords, and key combinations that traditional logic would deem untuneful or just plain wrong, Monk had a perverse and childish delight in
exploring. Like Schroeder on acid or the Cat in the Hat wailing on a junkyard
piano, the six songs on Live at 1964 the Monterey Jazz Festival
illuminate a cartoon cosmos of sound that is at once gloriously naive
and intellectually daring.
When he made his appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1964, Monk was
at the top of his game. After playing for years as a sideman and collaborating
with artists as celebrated as Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, and Art Blakey,
Monk experienced little success or critical recognition until he began to record
for the Riverside label. Riverside believed in Monk’s percussive, offhand
approach to the piano but knew that even the most receptive persons might
require a little assistance in order to appreciate what he was doing. They
wisely convinced him to record two albums of standards that at least gave jazz
fans a point of reference from which to approach Monk’s strange perambulations.
His bizarre readings of works in the standard canon revealed a method to his
approach that often made use of silences where a note was expected. Conversely,
he routinely imposed notes in the places where pauses usually were found. By
doing this, he completely inverted the original melody, and in the process, he
revealed something about its subtext that previously had eluded the ear.
When he took the stage in Monterey in the summer of 1964, Monk had just
signed to Columbia Records, and he was enjoying a level of exposure to which he
previously had not been privy. Several of his own compositions — such as ’Round Midnight and Ruby My Dear — had become classics that
increasingly were recorded by peers as renowned as Miles Davis and Gerry
Mulligan. The same year, Monk even made the cover of Time as one of the
new faces of jazz. Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival is the third
live set from Monk to be issued this year — Live at the It Club and Live at the Jazz Workshop are both outstanding examples of his mid-’60s
output — and it is easy to understand why this period of his career has such
great appeal to his fans. Working in Monterey with a flawless ensemble that
seemed to understand and anticipate his every move, Monk took the audience on a
guided tour of his own inner Heaven and Hell. Beginning with a 10-minute
exploration of Blue Monk, a rendition that is among the best recordings
available of this signature tune, he moved into definitive performances of Rhythm-A-Ning and Straight, No Chaser, both of which remain obtuse
and challenging decades after their original conception.
With an almost childlike sense of defiance, Monk created new paradigms of
timing and sound that reached their fullest expression during the concert
featured on Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival. Like Henri Rousseau,
the great 19th century French painter, the naive
gloss of Monk’s art often hid its intellectual rigor, several layers below the
surface. Because of this, it may take awhile for all of the songs to sink in.
Given time and patience, however, Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival
is a gold mine, a kind of modernist Rosetta Stone that will pay continuous
dividends to anyone who is brave enough to let go and dive in. Live at the
1964 Monterey Jazz Festival is a gorgeous record; it is a rich,
African-American tapestry that will taunt, tempt, and titillate listeners for
years to come.  ˝
Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival is available from
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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