Thelonious Monk: Let's Cool One

One of my favorite Thelonious Monk sessions took place on May 30, 1952, his last for Blue Note Records. There's a slippery urgency to the pianist's playing on this date, and the sidemen are both bluesy and martini dry. Joining Monk were Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Lou Donaldson (alto sax), Lucky Thompson (tenor sax), Nelson Boyd (bass) and Max Roach (drums). For the time, the music was beyond revolutionary and made when Monk was particularly exuberant and creatively subversive. [Photo of Thelonious Monk by William P. Gottlieb]

The May 1952 session came after a tough period for Monk. Back in August 1951, Monk had been visiting with his mother when pianist Bud Powell turned up with a man and a woman Monk didn't know. The quartet went out to the woman's car, to avoid disturbing Monk's mother. Soon, two narcotics officers showed up, and Powell flipped a glassine envelope that landed at Monk's feet.

The car's inhabitants were arrested. Powell went to a psychiatric ward, the woman was released and the man was held over since he was on bail at the time for a similar crime. Monk faced the charges solo, refusing to dime on Powell, and spent 60 days in New York's Riker's Island.

After Monk was released, he was professionally idle for several months but busy writing new music. According to Robin D.G. Kelley in Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original:

"Nellie [Monk's wife] continued to work every day while Monk stayed home with Toot [their child], keeping house, writing music, and working with the parade of musicians who would drop by the apartment.

" 'When he wasn't working regularly,' Nellie explained, 'he'd be working at home, writing and rehearsing bands that didn't have the prospects of a dog... In the un-years, as I call them, as far as he was concerned, he felt just as confident as he does now that what he was doing musically could appeal to other people if they only took the opportunity to listen.' "

In May 1952, Blue Note's Alfred Lion hired Monk to record The Genius of Modern Music Vol. 2. By then, bebop had settled into a commercial groove, a self-searching period, if you will. Charlie Parker was recording American songbook classics for Norman Granz, Dizzy Gillespie was in Paris making records with strings, James Moody was back in New York recording with bop vocalist Babs Gonzales and Miles Davis was experimenting with different configurations of his All Stars.

In addition, King Pleasure was riding high with a vocalese version of Moody's I'm in the Mood for Love. Ironically, it would be the runaway success of Pleasure's hit that provided Prestige owner Bob Weinstock with sufficient cash to sign Monk and two other new musicians to his label soon after Monk's May recording date for Blue Note.

What does all of this mean? For Monk in May 1952, the artistic field was wide open, and he easily dominated. As you'll hear, Monk demonstrates handily on this date that he was the most creative force on the scene, twisting and turning music the way a blacksmith might fashion hot horseshoes.

On the last Sunday in May, the proto-hardbop sextet met at WOR Studios and recorded six sides—four of which were new compositions. Skippy was based on the chord changes to Tea for Two and was named after Nellie's sister. Hornin' In was a minor medium-tempo walker with an impossible melody line, and Sixteen was named for the song's 16-bar AABA structure. [Photo of Thelonious Monk by William P. Gottlieb]

Let's Cool One was named for a phrase favored by Harlem disc jockey and entertainer Ralph Cooper. Carolina Moon and I'll Follow You (without horns) also were recorded that day.

The result wasn't bop but something much more angular. Monk's passion for inside-out melody lines works to inspire  Dorham, Donaldson and Thompson, with Roach playing more traditional bop polyrhythms.

Just listening to Hornin' In makes hairs stand on end as you realize how impossibly difficult the piece must have been to play. Seven takes were needed, and on one flawless attempt (the fifth), the ruinous error is made by bassist Boyd. Thrown by the rugged melody, he plays two additional notes alone at the end.

When Boyd makes this error, you sense his sheepishness, as  though he stepped off a cliff in a cartoon, pausing mid-air to look down and gulp before dropping. One can only assume the hell that was raised when they had to re-record that song again after such a magnificent execution.

Monk's music is enveloping. Many people praise the pianist but in truth resist putting on his albums, largely because of the emotional taxation. His piano work refuses to be background music and always commands your attention. But once Monk is on, I get into the swing of things and find it hard to switch off of him. Monk stimulates many different parts of my brain that seem reserved only for him. [Photo of Thelonious Monk by William P. Gottlieb]

On May 30, 1952, Monk was captured feeling free—in more ways than one.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Thelonious Monk: Genius of Modern Music Vol. 2 (Blue Note) at iTunes or here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Hornin' In, the fifth take, with Boyd's error at the end. Also in the beginning, is it me or does Monk's intro sounds a lot like the basis for Oscar Peterson's intro to Something's Coming from West Side Story? At any rate, listen how Monk's melody line sounds like shattered glass. Fascinating stuff...

Comments

[mel house]

I highly recommend Bill Holman's CD Brilliant Corners (the music of Thelonious Monk)for any Monk fans out there.What a band!

[Doug Zielke]

What's almost as fascinating as Monk's music itself, is when other musicians attempt to interpret it. Some get it, and others....

[David]

I'm not sure if Nelson's two extra notes were a mistake or just an afterthought. They can't have been the reason that this take wasn't chosen as even Richard Bock could have made a clean splice at this point.
Lucky's solo on the bridge of the 2nd chorus is interesting in that he doesn't really play anything that he mightn't have played in a more traditional setting, yet in this context it sounds perfectly modern and Monkish.

[David]

My comment above about splicing may be irrelevant as Marc informs me that Blue Note was still recording on disks in '52. (Probably that little coda could still have been edited out when the LP was assembled.) Bob Blumenthal claims that the choice of takes was dictated by a "tentative ensemble return" on this take. I guess everyone hears something different.

[Ed Leimbacher]

So Blakey dropped bombs, and Monk dropped... hot horseshoes? Okay. I've long pondered his playing, wondered what image or phrase might capture his angular perspective and percussive style. "Sheets of sound" for Monk's busy on-the-job trainee John? Pshaw. Marc has upped the ante on that one, and met the loneliest Monk challenge, working in the smithy of creation, pounding out hot horseshoes on the cool anvil of Bop.

[Jery Rowan]

In the Toronto music circles I cut my teeth on during the '50s, an expression regarding Monk was being liberally tossed around, "Someday his technique might catch up to his ideas".

An expression of envy and awe by those unable to grab the tail of his creative comet, I believe.

[don frese]

Thanks for the appreciation of one of my favorite sessions by Monk, and two of my favorite compositions by him--Hornin' In and Skippy.
You can gauge the difficulty of Monk's pieces by how often or not they are recorded by others. Both of these are little assayed (as are Trinkle Tinkle and Four in One). One version of Hornin' In I can recommend: by Sphere on Verve--the lone date with Gary Bartz replacing the late Charlie Rouse. It is out of print, but can be found from Amazon Marketplace dealers and elsewhere.