Thelonious Monk: It's Monk's Time (Columbia)
Purchased at Borders, I think
I'll risk oversharing today. It won't be anything too personal, but I'm writing about myself in addition to the music. But then I suppose that's always true, isn't it?
I've taught at Carnegie Mellon University since 2005. I only remember that date because I put it on my Facebook page. Despite being a modest job within the school, part time adjunct faculty teaching music technology courses, I'm extraordinarily lucky to have landed it. Who know you, where you are, timing, networking, etc, right?
I often say, "On my worst day, I remind myself that I teach at Carnegie Mellon, and that's a good thing." And that's true. Nonetheless, there are days, such as today, when I think, "What am I doing here?" The details are unimportant, just frustrations with students not attending class or showing up late, and complicating my syllabus schedule. It's something I shouldn't the least bit personally, and yet I can't help it.
I've taken a hot bath, watched some Netflix, exercised a bit (another routine I intend to make more regular), and my back is still tense and knotted up. I just have trouble letting these things go, which I assume would come as no surprise to many of my friends.
What music to put on this evening? Something I personally find comforting. I considered putting on some 1970s Yes, one of my early music loves. No, not quite right. Then I saw my Monk discs and thought, there we go.
Another thing I sometimes say is, "This is music I've known my entire life." And that's more-or-less true. I always had an affinity for music, had a talent for recognizing and singing melodies as a young boy. I think I've written on here before about my father's collection of records and especially reel-to-reel tapes where he dubbed hours and hours of records that he borrowed. One of the first musics I remember was of a tape entirely of Beatles records, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper definitely being included. Later I had the blue double singles collection, my sister had the red one. I preferred mine.
Later I'd find myself investigating his records, often with his prompting. I spent time with that Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five collection on Columbia. I had a Louis t-shirt at one time, and knew the names of the players in that band before I knew who Led Zeppelin was.
One of the things he recommended was Thelonious Monk. He said Monk was his favorite of the "modern guys" as he put it. He listened to a bit of Bird and bebop but had a generally low tolerance for it. He liked that Monk, no matter how weird his pieces might sound, always insisted the soloists work from the melody when soloing. He also like Monk's choice of tenor players.
This takes me back at least 45 years now, as a teen listening with headphones to his stereo in our living room, in between spins of Yes, Queen, ELP or whatever current thing I might have had that hasn't aged so well.
The LP I specifically remember was Criss Cross on Columbia, but this title was in his collection too and I most likely heard it as well. When he sold off his record collection, I made sure to tell him to save me the Monk vinyl he had. I already had the CD issue of this title, probably purchased in the 90s when I worked at Borders. You know, happy to have the vinyl though.
How does this particular title rate? I might be the lesser of all of the Columbia titles, but that doesn't make it unworthy of a spin. I have to bristle a little on behalf of Charlie Rouse when he just can't seem to play "Stuffy Turkey" correctly. It wasn't a new tune (none of them are on this) but not a standard part of the Monk Quartet repertoire. The same could be said of "Brake's Sake", an even tricker tune. The highlights are some of the old timey songs that Monk chose to play here: "Lulu's Back in Town", "Memories of You", and "Nice Work If You Can Get It".
"Lulu" is played solo first, then as ensemble, then back to solo at the end. Monk's solo performances, particularly of those older Tin Pan Alley songs, have grown on me over the years. Maybe I just needed to age into them? I wanted to play "Lulu" with Coal Train, a string band I was in many years ago, but we never got to it.
It's nice to inhabit Monk's sound world, if briefly. Weekend's here and I'll put school aside for a couple of days.
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