Straight No Chaser is the place for jazz lovers (and those who will soon be jazz lovers) to enjoy podcasts with their favorite music and artists. Winner of the 2017 JazzTimes Readers' Poll for Best Podcast, your host Jeffrey Siegel will take you inside the world of jazz, from the new releases to the best festiva;s to remembrances of jazz legends.
The
Thelonious Monk Quartet with Charlie Rouse lasted eleven years when
they hit the hippest club in Los Angles, “The It Club” for two
dates on October 31 and November 1, 1964. Rouse had formally filled
the revolving sax chair that had been held alternately by Johnny
Griffin, John Coltrane and even Clark Terry, in Monk’s varying
sized groups six years earlier, and was near the height of his
powers as a Monk foil.
The Rhythm section,
however, was new - drummer Ben Riley had joined at the beginning of
the year and bassist Larry Gales had only logged in a month at the
time of these dates, replacing Butch Warren (who had replaced John
Ore). However, the recordings made fifty years ago today show a
band mature beyond their time together. Apparently there were no
formal plans to record the show for release on Columbia Records,
and the name of the label engineer who recorded the evening on
three-track tapes is now lost to history. What we have
on Live at the It
Club are highlights from the 3 sets he played on each
night (the Mosaic Records reissue features the entire two night
stand), a typical Monk mix of standards (“I’m Getting Sentimental
over You” and “All the Things You Are” bookend the evening) and
originals, including “Brilliant Mississippi” which had been
released the previous year on Monk’s
Dream. Fans interested in
this particularly fertile period of Monk’s career should check out
the album Solo Monk he recorded on the afternoons
preceding and following these shows in an L.A. studio. Two days
later, on November 3, the Quartet was upstate in San Francisco,
where Live at the Jazz Workshop was
recorded.
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