Thelonious Monk - The Classic Quartet (Remastered) '2005/2023

24bit

Artist	Thelonious Monk Related artists
Album name	The Classic Quartet (Remastered)
Country
Date	2005/2023
Genre	Jazz
Play time	38 min
Format / Bitrate	24 BIT Stereo 1420 Kbps / 44.1 kHz
Media	CD
Size	114; 211 MB
Price	Download $1.95

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Tracks list

Intermittently available over the years on various labels and in various guises
(most recently as Thelonious Monk Quartet in Japan and 1963: In Japan), this
album catches Monk on the cusp between his unflaggingly inventive,
mould-breaking Riverside years and his less consistently exploratory, later
period with CBS.
Clocking in at just over 38 minutes, The Classic Quartet is a set the group
recorded for Japanese TV during a short tour of the country in May, 1963. The
sound, enhanced from videotape, is surprisingly good: solid and generally
well-balanced throughout (though Charlie Rouse could perhaps have been a little
further forward in the mix and Butch Warren a little further back).

The band likewise. They turn in solid performances of familiar material, and
each of the five tracks at some point hits the high groundâ€”Monk's solos
on "Epistrophy," "Just A Gigolo" and "Blue Monk"; Rouse's solos on "Evidence"
and "Blue Monk"; and Frank Dunlop's solos on "Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are" and
"Evidence." (Compared to his rhythm section partner Dunlop, the recently
drafted-in Warren is a rather more plodding, metronomic force, useful enough in
the ensemble passages, not so compelling during his solos).

While it's always a pleasure to hear a stretched out "Epistrophy" (here just
under six minutes long) rather than the usual brief set-opening theme statement,
the best tracks are probably "Just A Gigolo" and "Blue Monk." Monk was able to
get so deep inside his favourite standards, and turn them so thoroughly inside
out, that at its best the effect is one of the tune having been written
specially for him. The piano-only treatment of "Just A Gigolo" is one of those
little treasures. At just over three minutes, "Gigolo" is the shortest track on
the album. "Blue Monk," at over eleven minutes, is the longest, taken at an
easy, swinging, measured pace. Rouse turns in a muscular solo, but it's Monk
himself who shines brightest, investing his ten-year-old warhorse with
spontaneity and wit, funk and dissonance.

Probably appealing most to the Monkian hardcore, it's good to have The Classic
Quartet back on the menu.

Personnel
Thelonious Monk: piano; Charlie Rouse: saxophone, tenor; Butch Warren: bass;
Frankie Dunlop: drums.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Thelonious Monk - Epistrophy (Remastered) (5:45)
1.02 - Thelonious Monk - Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are (Remastered) (8:49)
1.03 - Thelonious Monk - Evidence (Remastered) (8:50)
1.04 - Thelonious Monk - Just A Gigolo (Remastered) (3:20)
1.05 - Thelonious Monk - Blue Monk (Remastered) (11:22)