It’s a fair bet that Thelonious Monk is the most performed jazz composer. Who else might be in the running? Ellington, of course. Gershwin, perhaps. Maybe Wayne Shorter, more recently. But for a composer for all occasions – to make you prick up your ears at opening or closing of a live set, to enliven a recording, as inspiration for a new set of orchestrations, a solo collection, even one who poses the challenge of performing all the known compositions – I can think of at least three goes there without really trying – it has to be Thelonious.
And laying down at least a few Monk tunes has become something of a rite of passage for jazz newcomers. Indeed, saxophonist Xhosa Cole included one on his splendid debut album, Know Them Know Us in 2022, where he paid tribute other great predecessors from Woody Shaw to Ornette Coleman and Lee Morgan.
Now, for his third release, he offers an (almost) all Monk set, recorded live last year, mid-tour, on his home turf in Birmingham. It’s a satisfying set, brimful of the shared delight in improvisation that Monk seems to trigger so reliably in suitably talented interpreters. In a constantly crowded field, it’s as good an example as I can think of how these old tunes hold such a strong fascination for modern players and listeners.
Old they really are. Cole’s choices are mainly from the most-played Monk titles, save for the notoriously difficult Brilliant Corners. The compositions here were first recorded in the 1940s or 1950s, with a single title from 1961. Yet, while vast acreages of riffy tunes from the era now sound pretty stale, Monk’s wry, even sardonic, lines, and slyly insistent rhythms, still come up fresh, each one a little concentrated nugget of musical intelligence it is up to the player to unpack.
Cole goes at the unpacking with an abandon worthy of one of his other great inspirations, Sonny Rollins, aided by equally spirited contributions from Steve Saunders on guitar, Josh Vadiveloo on bass and Nathan England Jones on drums. Monk’s tunes can sometimes be heard as near-abstractions from his own musical milieu , and the performances on this night in Birmingham benefit from Cole’s fluency in keeping faith with a composition – when they have such strong character neglecting to do that is perilous indeed – while reserving the right to drop into abstractions of his own every now and then.
The secret sauce for this Monk tribute, though, is Liberty Styles’ brilliant tap dancing. This draws attention to the rhythmic subtleties of the music, emphasising Monk’s deep understanding of that percussive tradition – and calling to mind pianist Jason Moran’s own Monk project and his inspired use of field recordings of the composer dancing on the floorboards of a rehearsal loft.
That’s not to imply Styles is as endearingly clumpy-footed as the great man. The American is as fleet of foot as thought and her four tracks here are truly lifted by her presence. They include the closing Come Sunday, programmed in deference to Monk’s deep debt to Ellington and featuring a stately vocal from Heidel Vogel.
Not that the other three cuts, which squeeze in treatments of another six Monk compositions, suffer by comparison. The quartet are four players working together with delight to demonstrate yet again that the practice of jazz is perhaps the best way to allow great music to generate more great music – provided that, as here, you begin with the right materials.
If you are fortunate enough to be hearing Monk music for the first time, this is a fine way to begin. If – more likely – you know these pieces already, I think these versions stand with any others I’ve heard, including the ones left us by the composer. Since Monk fully deserves the modern genius tag, that’s quite an achievement.
‘On a Modern Genius, Vol 1’ is released today, 10 January 2025.
