Track Listing

1. Evidence - Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk,
2. In Walked Bud
3. Blue Monk
4. I Mean You
5. Rhythm-A-Ning
6. Purple Shades
7. Evidence [Alternate Take][#][*]
8. Blue Monk [Alternate Take][#][*]
9. I Mean You [Alternate Take][#][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132709 in Music
• Released on: 1999-02-16
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .15 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
In 1957 Thelonious Monk still lived at the edges of acceptance by a larger jazz audience, and Art Blakey's signature group was in the midst of a long formative phase. With Bill Hardman's cutting, raw-edged trumpet and Johnny Griffin's gruff and coiling tenor, Blakey's band was a looser, less defined, but more intense unit than it would become later with in-house composers like Benny Golson, Bobby Timmons, and Wayne Shorter. When Blakey and Monk, longtime friends and associates, made this date playing some of Monk's core material, the Messengers became virtually a Monk ensemble and one of the most inspired to record. A year later, Griffin would be a regular member of Monk's quartet, and this disc demonstrates why. --Stuart Broomer

Customer Reviews

Monophonically Marvelous Monk
I purchased this recording because of the presence of its three forceful and virtuosic if not indomitable hard-bop players--Blakey, Griffin, and the underrated Hardman. Moreover, with Blakey at the controls, you expect the music to be hard-driving, soulful and funky-- regardless of who the other personnel are (not to mention the date being under the Jazz Messengers' name).

The surprise, possibly even for some Monk fans: nobody upstages, detracts from, plays over or by Thelonious, whose session this is from beginning to end. His irresistible, indelible stamp is on every bar of every tune, which he achieves as much by laying out as by constructing weird, off-balance voicings and elliptical, serendipitous melodic motifs. By slowing practically every tempo down to his favorite groove--somewhere south of "medium" tempo--he gives himself necessary creative space while forcing the other three to fill space with pyrotechnics--but never leaving any doubt about who the ringmaster is.

This is as enjoyable a Monk session as any I've heard (even if it's very atypical Messengers' music). Just be forewarned that the piano is out of tune (which Monk exploits in all registers), and the stereo separation on my copy is so ridiculously extreme that Thelonious Sphere seems to be occupying (literally) another sonic sphere. In fact, the only way I found to appreciate the album, and fully "hear" the music, was to mix the two channels into a monophonic signal (not possible, unfortunately, with many machines).

The Blakey-Monk Jazz School
When I first heard this classic album I became fascinated by the collaboration between Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk. This is communication on the highest level possible. You can wake me up in the middle of the night to listen to I Mean You or Rhythm-a-Ning. Just the way Blakey & Monk seem to "feed" ideas to Bill Hardman - who's way below the level of B&M - is something I can listen to for as long as I live. And then there's Johnny Griffin, a Monk player as good as Charlie Rouse ever was. This new CD is such a big improvement; at last there is the balance that was sadly missing in the original longplay album. If you ever want to understand and appreciate the real genius of B&M, get this one - and listen to it, study it, enjoy it.

Meeting of giants
This is one of those wonderful encounters that crisply exhibit the fertility of jazz. Art Blakey's bands were among the most swinging units of the 50s, admired for their tight orchestrations and sheer command of their material. Monk had been recording his own works for Riverside with highly creative, complex musicians, assembled by Orrin Keepnews.

The March 1957 recording with Art Blakey is an unqualified masterpiece. The startling uniqueness of Monk's compositions emerges out of a fascinating dialogue between himself and Blakey. Johnny Griffin contributes one composition to the date, "Purple Shades". "In Walked Bud" contains some of Blakey's most creative drumming: rolls so brief and dense they flutter like whispers, sharp rimshots that accentuate the contours of Monk's ideas, a pulse that is implied more by space between identifiable sonic events than by sounds themselves. A similarly magical treatment is afforded to "Evidence", "Blue Monk" and "I Mean You". The timelessness of this recording lies in its ability to create a synthesis of the origins of jazz in blues motifs and an authoritative development of these motifs into a new, modern music. Johnny Griffin is on sparkling form, spurred by the driving rapport between Monk and Blakey, delivering solos of considerable intensity and originality.

This record is what modern jazz in the 50s was all about. It predated many of the rhythmic and harmonic "innovations" of the following decade, and still today sets extremely high standards for contemporary jazz.