Thelonious Monk
Live at the It Club
Record Store Day Exclusive
I remember distinctly talking about Jazz with one of my professors in graduate school. This was years ago when I was an even bigger idiot than I am today. But, I was smart about music. I wanted to branch out. Jazz was, and remains, a mystery to me. But as a punk rocker (a good one that welcomed a wide range of music), I wanted to learn more. I listened to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I told this to my professor who might be able to give me some advice on where to go next. “Is there anyone else?” he replied?
Boy, was there ever.
When I first heard Thelonious Monk, I felt immediately at ease. Like I found my guy: my jazz guy. Straight No Chaser was where I started, and I don’t know how that happened. It was one of the only jazz albums where I could absorb the music. It was magical stuff. The same for Underground. Even his Alone in San Francisco album proved to have medicinal properties with me.
I had never heard a live Monk album until now. The idea seems strange to me. Jazz albums are cut live, correct? Maybe with different musicians, but the performance is still being captured as these people play together in a room. You can see it in the Monk documentary where, if memory serves me right, they are actually taking down performances that would end up on LPs (maybe it was Straight No Chaser itself?). So, why have a live album? I guess it’s nice to have a document of this night, and even Monk’s performances. Live at the It Club’s RSD release contains the incomplete performance of the two nights Monk and his quartet played at the club. It sounds like a best-of of his songs, and the recording is almost studio-quality in performance. The LP versions sound warmer and more intimate, but at least in the live versions you get to hear people politely applause after a drum, bass, or piano solo prompts them to. It’s not distracting at all, and to an untrained ear like mine, it tells me when something technically relevant happened that I might have missed.
I like this album and will be playing it a lot over the next 6 months. It’s almost a Greatest Hits of Monk even though some of my favorites of his are missing (like “Locomotive” and “Japanese Folk Song”). It has an audience participation aspect to it that will take some getting used to, but it’s still a wonderful way to get acquainted with Monk’s work and revisit some favorites.
