Thelonious Monk - Monk's Music

"Monk’s Music" is an important album because it is one of the very few testimonies of Thelonious Monk’s band at the time John Coltrane was a regular member. It also showcases a second tenor sax, that of the legendary Coleman Hawkins, who in the 1940s featured Monk as the pianist of his band, and with whom Monk made his first studio recordings.

The album received a five-star rating in Down Beat, with Dom Cerulli stating that, “Throughout, Monk is the dominant force. The music, whether blown by the horns or rapped out by his hands, is as much a part of him as his thoughts. It is a highly personal music, now brittle and seemingly spastic; now firm and outspoken. But always it is unified in conception and in overall sound. It is a tribute to Monk that within this intensely personal music, a soloist like Coltrane can develop a singularly personal style of his own, while fitting into the frame of Monk’s reference. This is one to play again and again with no diminution of pleasure, or of discovery.”

SIDE A:

01 ABIDE WITH ME
02 WELL YOU NEEDN’T
03 RUBY, MY DEAR [featuring Coleman Hawkins]
04 RUBY, MY DEAR [featuring John Coltrane] (*)

(*) BONUS TRACKS

SIDE B:

01 OFF MINOR
02 EPISTROPHY
03 CREPUSCULE WITH NELLIE