Thelonious Monk At Carnegie Hall CD

Personnel: Thelonious Monk (piano); John Coltrane (tenor saxophone); Ahmed Abdul-Malik (bass instrument); Shadow Wilson (drums).
Liner Note Authors: Larry Appelbaum; Robin D.G. Kelley; Ira Gitler; Lewis Porter; Amiri Baraka; Stanley Crouch; Ashley Kahn.
Recording information: Carnegie Hall, New York, NY (11/29/1957).
Larry Appelbaum, the recording lab supervisor at the Library of Congress, came across this tape by accident while transferring the library's tape archive to digital. What a find. Forget the Five Spot recording that sounds like it was recorded inside of a tunnel from the far end. The sound here is wonderfully present and contemporary. More importantly, this band -- which also included drummer Shadow Wilson and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik -- had it right on November 29, 1957, at Carnegie Hall. The John Coltrane on this date is far more assured than he had been four months earlier on the Five Spot date and on the initial Prestige side Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane. He'd been with Monk for four months and had absorbed his complex, multivalent musical system completely. It's clear from the opening track, "Monk's Mood," where the pair play in duet, that Coltrane is confident and moving into his own. Monk feels that confidence with his nearly Baroque entrance on the tune. This is a hard-swinging band with two front-line players who know how to get the best from one another. Coltrane knows the music inside out and his solos reflect an early version of his sheets of sound methodology. Check the joyous "Crepuscule with Nellie" for the hard evidence. Coltrane's cue and Monk's arpeggios are wondrous, swinging, and full of fire and joy. Trane's fills on the melody that leads into his solo are simply revelatory, and the solo itself is brilliant. Or check Wilson's cymbal work on "Nutty" before the band kicks it in full force. Even on the knottiest of Monk's tunes, "Epistrophy," Trane shines and takes charge of his instrument while being utterly receptive to the continual shape-shifting Monk put into his compositions in a live setting. There are nine tunes here (an incomplete version of "Epistrophy" finishes the set) taken from early and late performances. These 51 minutes of music leave the Live at the Five Spot date in the dust. This is one of those "historic" recordings that becomes an instant classic and is one of the truly great finds in jazz lore. It documents a fine band with its members at the peak of their powers together. The package also contains voluminous liner notes by the likes of Ira Gitler, Amiri Baraka, Ashley Khan, Stanley Crouch, and others. This is a must-have. ~ Thom Jurek
On paper it seems as if such titanic and distinctive musical personalities as Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane might not mix very well, but this stellar set, recorded live at Carnegie Hall in 1957, plays almost like a blissful extended duet between the two (with support from a sensitive yet hard-swinging bassist and drummer). The opener, "Monk's Mood," for example, features the composer/pianist's typically brilliant, idiosyncratic playing, while Coltrane floats over the top in the most lyrical of modes. Monk, in particular, is a master of tension-and-release tunefulness, creating rhythmic and harmonic intricacies that seem to spur Coltrane's saxophone exploration to new heights.
The quartet shines on ballads ("Sweet and Lovely"), but the leaders display their best chemistry on the Monk's thorny, uptempo bop numbers. "Evidence" and "Epistrophy," for instance," have Monk adding rhythmic, dissonant punctuation to Coltrane's torrential stream of ideas, creating a thrilling push-pull balance. A superb date, and a must for fans of both artists, AT CARNEGIE HALL captures two of jazz's most important figures working in perfect symbiosis.

Award Winner

Rolling Stone (No. 985, p.76) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...What makes this set such a godsend, nearly fifty years later, is that we hear this brief legendary partnership at its best in a concert-hall setting, in stunning-for-its-day fidelity...."
Down Beat (p.65) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Coltrane takes the good bait, reeling off wave after wave of his harmonically stupendous lines, pushing himself harder than in any other contemporaneous situation."