Mastering Bebop: Thelonious Monk's Live Jazz Performances

These outstanding live jazz performances are brought by the master of bebop and piano music Thelonious Monk. Monk opens with “Lulu’s Back in Town” in both performances and showcase some of the most popular of his songs; Blue Monk, ‘Round Midnight, Don’t Blame Me, and Epistrophy. Everybody gets a chance to shine on these songs. Every musician is allotted time specifically to perform multiple solo acts, often improvising on the initial theme of the song. Dissonance plays a major role in the performance, especially from Monk on the piano; enough dissonance to make all of the classical composer roll in their graves by a wide margin.

As a performer, Monk definitely kept things more interesting by getting up and moving around, rather than just sitting

on the piano the entire time; often just swaying with his eyes closed and just grooving to the music and hopping back into the keys at just the right moment. Walking away from your instrument for multiple minutes at a time is certainly a peculiar habit, but it really fits the performance, as well as his style of playing. The entire song “Don’t Blame Me” was simply a solo piano performance, in fact, the rest of his band can be seen in the background sitting and simply enjoying the performance themselves; the drummer can even be seen nonchalantly smoking a cigarette in the meantime.
One of this group of musicians to notice, is the incredible versatility of the drummer Ben Riley. He is playing with nothing but a bass drum, snare, hi-hat, and a single symbol. He easily has made it sound like a full and complete set. The first solo he did was also very impressive, especially in utilizing the jazz brushes to offer a more mellow texture. I am completely blown away with the performance of the drummer, and could easily just watch him go at it for an hour. I think skilled drummers such as Riley almost become so much more dynamic when using smaller drum sets. It still goes that his solos in the second performance with the bigger drum set were still incredible.
The Tenor Saxophone player Charlie Rouse absolutely cannot be overlooked by those listening to or watching the performances. He seems to never run out of places to go or what note to transition to next, a very valuable skill any jazz musician strives to go for. While understandably he has certain scales to follow such as the pentatonic blues scales, it is still stunning nonetheless.
Offering a solid bass note comes the bassist Larry Gales, with some great bass solos as well. It is very easy to miss the bass notes coming through, but without them the music would sound annoying and flat at some times. This becomes less of an issue with this heavily improvised style of music. It is also important to note the relationship between the bass player and the drummer, as they both help create a solid foundation and rhythm in the performances, in fact, they are so vital to each other that when Gales would do his solos the drummer would continue playing, albeit with the jazz brushes. I thought it was interesting that during the second performance of “Lulu’s Back in Town” Monk actually walked up to the bassist and said something in his ear.
The musicians are so very well timed and synced together in both performances, and they clearly work well together in the rhythm and creation of new melodies on the spot.

I think as we move further into popular music, more of this incredible improvisation is going to emerge in music. Unfortunately, it is more common to see the act of coming up with melodies on the spot in person or at an actual concert, rather than on the radio or on an album. Although the performance was amazing, this particular style of music certainly fits a particular niche of both the performers and listeners. In a way, I think that listening to jazz like this takes some getting used to, especially if the listener is not used to listening to jazz in the first place. Jazz can be a very rewarding experience, but it also offers itself as something totally different from nearly all other music. Just getting used to listening to music in different scales, using minor chords, and hitting all sorts of dissonance offers plenty to work with, but Thelonious Monk’s style of playing has been just so different that it takes some practice and work to fully understand or appreciate what is going on in the music. Overall, I think this is just one of Monks many important contributions to the music of today, and a very great performance and

listen!