Thelonious Monk Underground CD

UNDERGROUND was the first Monk album in a decade to present new compositions by the artist. It is also the last album recorded with his classic quartet, featuring tenorist Charlie Rouse and the Ben Riley/Larry Gales rhythm section. Famous for its fun cover art (Monk is depicted in a French Resistance hideout at the piano with a machine gun slung over his shoulder, as a grumpy Nazi general looks on from the background), UNDERGROUND is truly one of Monk's finest offerings.

His singular weave of angularity, swing, sweetness and simplicity appears everywhere. "Ugly Beauty," one of the new tunes, is a waltzing ballad. From the soft, lilting head to Rouse's blowing, there's as much lemon in the honey as the title suggests. "Raise Four" is a spacious blues, with Monk forming lean, expressive lines from its already-spare melody. This and "In Walked Bud" are prime examples of Monk's repetition of a line through the chord changes as a way of parading its various harmonic faces. The latter track is made quite evocative with the impromptu addition of singer Jon Hendricks' lyrics.

Here, finally, is the first complete edition of Thelonious Monk's under-recognized classic, Underground. Recorded in 1967 and released one year later, this set features final Columbia quartet sides, some trio work, and one vocal cut with none other than Jon Hendricks on "In Walked Bud." What makes Underground remarkable as an album is the presence of four new Thelonious Monk compositions. During his tenure with Columbia and sometime before that, Monk's output as a composer had slowed. He would issue at most one new tune on each record and, to be fair, some fairly radical reworkings of his classics on others. Monk never tired of reinventing his work. But Underground saw the dawning of two major Monk compositions, the monumental "Ugly Beauty," which has been covered by countless jazzers, and the stellar blues romp "Raise Four." The tunes "Green Chimneys" and "Boo Boo's Birthday" are, in essence, quintessential Monk, but like some of his tunes, they have not been as readily covered. The classic Monk quartet members Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales, and Ben Riley were present for this monumental session in time-space harmonic rearrangements. The repetitive six-note figure at the head of "Raise Four" becomes a treatise on post-bop harmony in the middle of the cut; Monk's own sense of melodic extrapolation had grown once again, and this time exponentially. Stranger than any of his other records for the label, Underground featured more dissonance than any Monk outing ever, but it is presented as a far cry from the Young Lions of the '60s blowing the guts from their horns. The album is presented in its entirety as recorded, yet sounds completely different than the LP. The reason is that the time edits made for vinyl were removed, and on three occasions here -- "Thelonious," "Boo Boo's Birthday," and "Ugly Beauty" -- alternate takes round out the LP versions. In the latter two cases, these performances have never been issued before in any form. Also noteworthy is the sole performance of "Green Chimneys" here, which is five minutes longer than the version that appeared on the vinyl issue. Underground is chock-full of classic Monk moments and interplay, as between the pianist and Gales on "Raise Four," when Gales bows his bass and Monk resorts to a truncated cadence of his theme and striates a I-IV-V progression to t

This is part of the Columbia Jazz Masterpieces series.

W/ 3 Bonus Tracks.

Recorded at Columbia Studios, New York, New York on December 14 & 21, 1967 and February 14 & December 14, 1968. Includes liner notes by Peter Keepnews.

Personnel: Thelonious Monk (piano); Jon Hendricks (vocals); Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone); Ben Riley (drums).

Liner Note Authors: Gillian McKean; Peter Keepnews.

Recording information: 1967-1968.

Photographer: Don Hunstein.

Personnel: Thelonious Monk (piano); Jon Hendricks (vocals); Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone); Larry Gales (bass)