Customer Reviews

Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins: Rudy Van Gelder

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This review refers to : "Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]" CD - 2006

Okay so first things first, these recordings from the early 1950's sound like they were made yesterday. A fantastic job by Rudy Van Gelder, who was the original engineer, was at the sessions and knew exactly what the musicians wanted these great numbers to sound like. The CD runs about 35 minutes. There are 5 tracks all a good length from 5:09 to a get lost in 10:30 for Friday the 13th, which by the way was the date of one of the sessions that every thing seemed to go badly.

Every number and every musician on this CD are beyond great. Opening with the jazziest rendition(my new favorite) of "The Way You Look Tonight", Rollins takes the lead and already you are feeling the music. The other tracks are "I Want To Be Happy", "Work", "Nutty" and as mentioned "Friday The 13th". The leads differ with each number. Rollins plays on tracks 1,2 and 5. Monk is on every track and what an magnificent piano player. It really takes your breath away. Other musicians on the album are stand outs as well. Percy Heath on bass for 3 of the songs is incredible.Drummers, Arthur Taylor, Art Blakey and Willie Jones really cook. And I must make mention of Julius Watkins on the French Horn sitting in on "Friday The 13th". These guys, with their own wonderful styles, have these instruments talking and singing to each other. The listener will know exactly the mood and the conversation.

These were some important sessions that really preserve the greatness of Theolonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and friends.And how fortunate we are to be able to listen to them on this high quality recording,the remastering overseen by the Engineer who was there. The music will at the very least have you finger snapping and toe tapping. Take it in your car, it'll keep you good company in traffic, or around the house.The CD has a nice insert with production stories of the sessions.

I love it..You will too....laurie

Because of the two principals, this session is likely to receive ongoing reincarnations, never going out of print. But the title is somewhat deceptive. Rollins and Monk play together on 3 of the 5 tracks on the album, which comprises three separate recording sessions held between Nov. 1953 and Sept. 1954. Moreover, on "The Way You Look Tonight" Monk plays a mere half chorus, and in a fairly conventional bebop style at that. This leaves two tunes, "I Want to Be Happy" and "Friday the 13th," on which the two inimitable soloists contrast and complement one another's strong musical personalities.

The proceedings are enjoyable, frequently original and illuminating, but not as telepathic, or even miraculous, as some reviewers have described them. It's instructive to hear the "real" Monk emerge on "Happy," allowing the beat to establish itself before playing off of and around it, making the piano another polyrhythmic, percussive voice as opposed to a solo voice accompanied by rhythm section or a member of the accompanying team itself (these latter two roles characterizing his work on "Way You Look").

Still, I'm afraid that after hearing the Monk and Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert, this one is anticlimactic, sonically as well as musically. Moreover, Rollins, though bearing some of the same melodic-rhythmic qualities of his successor Charlie Rouse, lacks the light articulations and responsive quickness of the underrated Rouse. Compared to Rouse's sportive playfulness, Rollins sounds somewhat heavy and ponderous to me in Monk country. Coltrane's intensity meshes better with Monk whimsy because the piano serves as both ground and foil to the altissimo, rapturous flights of the tenor saxophone, as though Monk's solid harmonies are the falconer around which the falcon's spiraling harmonies are free to expend themselves without spinning out of control.

Blakey and Monk, both of whom are heard here, always made for an engaging rhythmic pairing, but this session leaves you wanting to hear more. An unfortunately overlooked recording (perhaps because it was on the "wrong" label) is "Thelonious Monk with Art Blakey" (Atlantic, 1957), which also features excellent trumpet work by the sadly underrecorded Bill Hardman. It's a fascinatiing duel between two equally strong-minded music-shapers, and though Blakey delivers his brand of overwhelming firepower, Monk doesn't yield an inch--in fact, both players emerge as winners but not before a Titanic struggle.

Like a lot of Prestige "albums" recorded in the pre-LP era, Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins actually a mishmash of various sessions and leftovers tossed into one (very brief) package. There are three Monk albums on Prestige -- this one, The Thelonious Monk Trio, and MONK; each one draws from multiple sessions, and several of the sessions overlap across albums. (This is also an album with Monk's Christmas Eve 1954 recordings under Miles Davis's name.)

This album is noteworthy for featuring two different occasions on which Monk teamed up with then-up-&-coming tenorist Sonny Rollins. Though Monk's other saxophone partnerships -- the long-term one with Charlie Rouse, and the short-term one with John Coltrane (can't forget Johnny Griffin either) -- get more notoriety, he and Rollins meshed very well. They'd reunite on Monk's Brilliant Corners (on Riverside) and Rollins's Volume 2 (on Blue Note). Though Rollins isn't quite at his mid/late-50s peak, he plays exceptionally well here. This is definitely some of my favorite pre-1955 Sonny.

The first two tracks come from a 1954 quartet session. I have to emphatically disagree with one of the other reviewers about this music being substandard. On the contrary, "The Way You Look Tonight" is an absolutely superlative performance, and "I Want to Be Happy" is close behind. Sonny is just on fire here. It's true that Monk takes a relatively back-seat role compared to his work as a leader, but Spheroids can rejoice in his fascinating comping and an inspired solo on the 2nd track.

The fifth track comes from a 1953 quintet session, with Julius Watkins joining in on French horn. Their low rumbling on the goofy theme of "Friday the 13th" is great. The sound on this session is poorer than the quartet session (Van Gelder didn't engineer this one). Rollins doesn't match his playing on the 1954 recordings, but still plays very well. Watkins's French horn (muted, I believe) produces a sound somewhere between a trumpet and a trombone. Monk's solo is terrific. Near the end Sonny and Julius trade bars, with Monk joining as a participant after a few exchanges.

Then we have tracks 3 and 4, left over from one of the component sessions of The Thelonious Monk Trio (the same session that debuted "Blue Monk"). "Work" is indeed a classic and overlooked Monk tune, but "Nutty" is equally good and has a really nice Art Blakey solo.

If you're fan of Monk and/or Rollins this album is absolutely essential. Whether you get it in this form, or as part of the Complete Prestige Recordings box (which might make more sense from a budgetary standpoint-- the Prestige albums are all ridiculously short), get it. Monk did some of his best work for Prestige.

[This review is based on the 20-bit K2 remaster, which has excellent sound and an identical tracklist. I have not heard the RVG reissue.]

I am a Monk and Rollins fan from way back and I really enjoy this CD. I recommend it to any true acoustic jazz fan or if you're just starting a collection.

This one is choice. There are some recordings that sit at the pinnacle of a particular style/type/time/mood. This is one of those-- just too smooth and too cool. This recording certainly isn't even close to be the most inspired music that either artist did -- it certainly seems to have lagged in popularity and attention compared to the artists other recordings. But, and this is a really big BUT, it is really satisfying, slick and warm music-- all at the same time. (Speaking of unheralded and inspired, if you haven't checked out Sonny Rollin's "On Green Dolphin Street" recorded live at the NY Museum of Modern Art in 1965 (or 1967-- somewhere around there-- run, don't walk, to get that one . . . . ). Anyway, this is a great recording. It is the kind of music that you can play for damn near anyone-- Jazz buff or not-- and they will like it, yet it is slick enough and well done enough that you will find yourself listening with rapt attention and enjoying its nuances on you 30th, 40th, 50th listening. Yeah, get this one. I'm now on my third copy. One copy didn't get returned. One CD just disappeared -- I have the case still, but I took it to work, and the CD got passed around and never made it back-- despite my thorough search. Didn't even make me mad at all. It is one of those recording that you can understand someone listening to it for the first time and deciding "It's mine now . . . . " In fact, the reason I pulled this one up is that I am thinking about getting an extra copy just so I am never without one. There are about 20 or so recordings that I have purchased an extra copy of, just so I know I will always have it. This is one of those kind of recordings that when you are in the mood for it, nothing else will do. One Amazon "tag" suggestion for this recording that someone came up with is "essential greats from the greatest." I wish I had come up with that expression-- it sure sums this recording up.

sonny rollins' tenor playing sounds effortless, like talking or humming. jazz artists who feel the urge to play classical concert music, branford marsalis and regina carter, find ravel's pavane pour une infante defunte a seductive choice. sonny rollins' rendition of the way you look tonight is a jazz variation of ravel's pavane.

monk's sound, as always, is definitively monk.

rollins and monk play well together.