Thelonious Monk Quartet Plays Blue Monk:

One of my favorite YouTube clips these days is this terrific performance of the Thelonious Monk Quartet playing “Blue Monk.” The clip was recorded live in concert in Olso, Norway, on April 15, 1966. The wonderful Charlie Rouse is on tenor, with Ben Riley on drums and Larry Gales on bass. It’s a very tight group that by this time had been playing together for two years, and it shows. The camerawork is marvelous throughout, too. Great stuff.

  If you’re interested in hearing more, I would start with Monk’s Dream, a 1962 recording that pairs Monk and Rouse with John Ore on bass and Frankie Dunlop on drums. If you don’t mind a CD with mostly solo piano, I’m also very partial to Monk’s 1957 Prestige recording Thelonious Himself.

  UPDATE: The clip was removed due a terms of use violation a few hours after my post, which seems odd given that it was up for almost a year and had been viewed many thousands of times. (I had assumed that there was no copyright violation given how long it had been up in the open.) In any event, I have substituted a performance of ‘Round Midnight from the same concert. If this one is taken down, too, I guess it will show that some lawyers can’t find YouTube on their own — but they can find it when there’s a link from the VC….

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