Customer Reviews

Complete Blue Note Recordings

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you care about jazz at all, then you know Monk is one of the greats, the necessary ones, a great American artist. And this is Monk's most important period, when he confounded the world with his sound and vision. His later period on Riverside produced a lot of great playing, but this set documents the revolution, and you must have it.

The music, the tunes speak for themselves, but what is so important here is the freshness. You are hearing the musicians grapple with Monk's work for the first time, some take naturally to it, others don't, but the tension is an important part of the experience. And you are also hearing his work as all listeners did for the first time, right off his first Blue Note LPs.

Yes, the sound quality on the live set with Coltrane is poor, but a complaint about that is meaningless. The gig was recorded on a cheap tape deck with no professional quality or intent, and the set is what it is, a find, never intended as a record. But the music comes through all the same, better to be with it than without it.

This album has many different takes of various tunes, giving you a good insight into the way that Thelonious Monk approached his work. The spare, rhythmic piano style that was his trademark shines through brightly... I love the various versions of April in Paris. Makes you realize how much people like Harry Connick have been influenced by Monk's brilliant style. If you think you have a "good" sense of rhythm and timing... then.. please try and hum some of the passages in this CD in the same timing as Thelonious... As BB king said.. sometimes it's more a question of knowing when NOT to play.. In Thelonious' case what made him truly special was his tremendous sense of phrasing and timing.

but the Riversides are more important and in far better sound. Unless you are a completist (as I am), I would say get "Genious of Modern Music, II" only. It contains the best dates from this set. Then spend the rest of the money that you saved on "Brilliant Corners", "Monk's Music", and "Himself" on Riverside. With that, you will have a great collection of classic Monk.

One other reviwer is correct in writing off the five-spot disc; it does sound awful. But the rest of the set is great and young Sonny Rollins and others sound great.

I feel badly about giving this 4 and not 5 stars. I know it is seminal and in that way it's a classic but I try to aim my review at the average jazz consumer, not all of which are scholars eager to track down every detailed aspect of Monk's development. Some of them want a great sound to listen to. With the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens, subpar fidelity is expected. But I'm sorry, contemporaries of this set of recordings have much better fidelity. There are too many outtakes and the fidelity is poor given its time. The Five-Spot outing has absolutely atrocious fidelity! The worst! It takes great patience to get through it even though it's Monk and Trane. For those who simply love listening to Monk and are not incredibly compelled to chart the the progression of his art, I recommend better fidelity versions of the same tunes on later non-Blue Note albums.

The musical substance is 5-star but the fidelity of the whole set is 2-star. Since the former is more important than the latter I give it 4.

Definitive versions of classic compositions such as Epistrophy, Misterioso, 'Round Midnight and many others, these recordings from Monk's first studio sessions as a leader are some of the most magical and inspiring music ever recorded. The fourth (live) disc is more of a bonus and should not be held against the rating. The sound quality of the three main discs is excellent for its time and actually adds to the mysterious mood. Essential listening.

Monk's "Complete Blue Note Recordings" is/are an excellent set of CD's, both educational about an important phase of development in jazz history, and enjoyable from the standpoint of simply listening to some wonderful performances. The only drawback about this set of four CD's is that some of them contain unavoidable technical flaws, given the fact that they were made in the late 1940's. Well worth buying, and music you'll enjoy listening to many times over!

There's jazz piano, then there's Monk jazz piano. And there's jazz recordings, then there's Blue Note jazz recordings. Put the two together and you get this fascinating, fun, educational, enjoyable 4-CD set. I wish I had bought this earlier in my jazz education, because this covers such a long time span and so many different types of recordings, that I really learned a lot from it. Many songs I had never attempted to play on the piano became possible for me, because I had Monk's frame to work within. The book that accompanies the CD's is very thorough and covers everything from what the recording sessions were like, to the technicalities of the recordings themselves. My favorites are the standards where Kenny Hagood sings, evoking the "bridge" that Monk was soon to form between "classic" jazz and "Monk" jazz. Of course, all of Monk's now famous tunes are here too. The recordings themselves are very clean and clear, which I really like, and there is a wide variety of styles covered on the different discs. I was very satisfied with this set, and I go back to it pretty often. If you're a fan of jazz, especially jazz piano, I'm sure you will too.

It's bebop, but it's Monk. He runs his fingers down the keyboard alot, & yet it gasses me every time. Milt Jackson is featured prominently. It may be early Bags, but...