Thelonious Monk Quartet: Complete 1961 Amsterdam Concert

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Thelonious Monk (p)
John Ore (b)
Frankie Dunlop (perc)
Charlie Rouse (ts)

Label:

Solar

June/2014

Catalogue Number:

4569944

RecordDate:

15 April 1961

There seem to be fewer live recordings from this first full European tour by Monk than from later ones. With Rouse only a couple of years into the job, and a fairly new rhythm section, it's perhaps not surprising that this concert from early on in the tour sounds robustly inventive and dynamically executed. The Complete designation is seemingly merited here, because the versions of ‘San Francisco Holiday’ (which sounds like an encore) and the brief ‘Epistrophy’ have been left off previous releases, but it's not unexpected to find that the repertoire is a rather predictable list of Monk standards. Beware, too, the fact that the reasonably well-balanced tapes are reproduced slightly fast, and thus sharp in pitch, which may well be responsible for the fact that the performance sounds more lively than some comparable items.

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