“I just closed my eyes and played”: Tony Kofi recalls making a celebrated Thelonious Monk album, now rereleased by The Last Music Company on its 20th anniversary.
When Tony Kofi was struggling to record what would become an admired set of Thelonious Monk tunes, he found the only way to succeed was to rip up the rulebook – literally.
“One of the first pieces we recorded was “Boo Boo’s Birthday” and when I went to listen back I hated it because it sounded like I was improvising from a textbook. I returned to the recording booth and picked up the music – which I really didn’t need – and I tore it into pieces and threw it in the bin. I just thought, I want to play from the heart.
“And what I did was so much better. I just closed my eyes and played.”
The result was “Plays Monk”, a much-praised debut album by the Tony Kofi Quartet that was awarded album of the year at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2005 and established the Nottingham-born saxophonist as a potent voice in British jazz. The album was a deep-dive into Monk world, which explored the composer’s singular voice but added a contemporary feel. In a career that has seen Kofi mix with such luminaries as Sam Rivers, Andrew Hill, David Murray and Abdullah Ibrahim, the success of that first album has continued to resonate – and now it is being rereleased on its 20th anniversary. There’s a vinyl (double) album for the first time and a celebratory gig in January at the 606 Club with Kofi’s Monk band: Jonathan Gee, piano; Winston Clifford, drums, and Ben Hazelton, bass.
Today the music of Thelonious Monk – with its angular melodies, knotty harmonies, sly wit and sudden pauses – stands central in the jazz world; he is said to be the most covered jazz composer, after overtaking Duke Ellington. Of course it wasn’t always thus for an eccentric visionary whose “wrong” notes once baffled as often as they charmed. Early in Monk’s career, a week-long showcase at the Village Vanguard in New York is reputed to have attracted no paying punters at all.
The young Kofi was puzzled at first too. “It was a few years after I’d started playing saxophone when I heard Little Rootie Tootie and it just sounded wrong to me. I just wondered, why do I feel it sounds wrong; why is the piano player constantly repeating things? I listened to more of his music but didn’t initially like it.”
However, moving to London and with time on his hands, he was sufficiently intrigued to investigate further. “I thought, just for fun, I’m going to learn all his music, all 70 pieces.” It was Monk’s melodies – linear, angular, unique – that would draw Kofi in. “They called out to me. But it wasn’t just playing the melodies, it was interpreting them … The tunes do not lend themselves well to the saxophone. They’re in odd keys with lots of odd movement so it was a challenge.”
Pianist Jonathan Gee became an accomplice. “I was at the 606 Club one night and Jonathan came down. He said. ‘You’re playing a tune that I’ve been struggling to learn all day.’ That was ‘Trinkle Tinkle’.” Gee would be a key ingredient in the recording, which was made only after five years of study by Kofi and the musicians associated with his Monk Liberation Front.
In the studio the saxophonist had to banish doubt. “I was thinking, you’re playing the music of one of the most difficult composers – and what are people going to think. But then I decided, just shut up and play. And that’s what I did: play with a lot of emotion.” He brought in Orphy Robinson on vibes for ‘Misterioso’; he played ‘Monk’s Mood’ unaccompanied on baritone; ‘Ugly Beauty’ was reimagined with strings. Of the scores (hundreds?) of Monk tributes, few recordings have captured his spirit so credibly.
“At gigs all over the world people say they love that album. When I got the gig with Abdullah Ibrahim he said he loved Monk and respected anyone who could play Monk well.
“You’ve got to come with your A-game to his music – you can’t treat it like a standards gig. You’ve got to be serious.”
What would Kofi ask the great composer if they somehow met (OK, Monk died in 1982)? The saxophonist chuckles. “How did he come up with such great melodies? Was it from his experience of the people around him – like Pannonica [aka the Baroness, his wealthy patron] and his daughter Boo Boo?
“Also on ‘Criss Cross’ – why did he extend the bridge from six bars to eight bars? And where did those amazing cadenzas, like on ‘Monk’s Mood’, come from – or ‘Crepuscule with Nellie’? That melody is absolutely beautiful and with so much history – the Scott Joplin influence.”
Even for Kofi, who knows the music intimately, some aspects of the man who wrote “Misterioso” will remain a mystery.
“Plays Monk” by the Tony Kofi Quartet (Last Music Company) is out now on CD and double LP. The quartet celebrates the rerelease at the 606 Club, London SW10, on 18 January. 606club.co.uk
