The Complete Riverside Recordings
With 15 jam-packed CDs and a well-designed LP-sized booklet with beautiful photos inside, this is the mother of all Thelonious Monk collections. Its supremacy is only in part related to girth and presentation, however. Historians and critics are almost unanimous in appraising the years Monk spent with the then-fledgling Riverside Records as his best. And this set catches it all, from the moments of deeply inspired, quicksilver genius to the foibles, miscues, and studio chatter (which is very minimal). Beginning in 1955 with a trio recording ofEllingtontunes to the slew of live recordings that compose most of the last eight CDs, the recordings here end in 1961, with Monk leading a slender quartet fronted by tenor saxophonistCharlie Rouse, who would remain with him through many of his Columbia releases of the 1960s. Monk's trail up to his lengthy stint with Riverside began with a short tenure at Blue Note, and while those recordings (collected on the four-CDComplete Blue Note Recordings) illuminate the pianist's skewered take on bebop, sessions like the one that makes up theBrilliant Cornerssingle CD (and that appear, of course, here) show ways Monk was doubling back on jazz styles, piling techniques from the swing era--a more moderated approach to underlying swing, for example--onto his odd voicings on chords, which arrest the ear at every turn. Where theBrilliant Cornerssessions show Monk working with a rasp-tonedSonny Rollinson tenor and Ernie Henry on alto, the bands expand and contract repeatedly throughout the 30 sessions, all of them annotated by producer and Riverside cofounder Orrin Keepnews in the booklet. You can hear Monk tailoring hisTatum-esque flourishes on the solo sessions that led toThelonious HimselfandThelonious Alone in San Franciscoand then lavishing reams of reeds and brass when in 1957 he corralledJohn ColtraneandColeman Hawkinson tenor saxes, Ray Copeland on trumpet,Gigi Gryceon alto sax, andArt Blakeyfor theMonk's Musicsession or when in 1959 he led a roiling ten-piece in theAt Town Hallsession. But the most intimate encounters are the smaller ones, withGerry Mulliganclearly finding all manner of seams and creases to drop his flowing baritone in on theMulligan Meets Monksession or with Monk finding an ideal chemistry withJohnny Griffin's fast, tight tenor sax lines. Then there is the microtonal poetry of a 20-minute listen-in where Monk explores "Round Midnight," giving listeners a keen glimpse into the mind of one of jazz's most singularly creative minds in history. With any one of the single CDs that together make up this package, a listener could so easily get hooked into buyingallthe work Monk did for Riverside disc by disc that it makes sense to take the colossal leap and scoop it all up at once--and then dig way in.--Andrew Bartlett