Search - Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane :: At Carnegie Hall

Go With the Flow. Give It Five Stars Like Everybody Else ...

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 05/17/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"... but honestly, except for stunning moments, this is not my favorite recording of either pianist Thelonius Monk or saxophonist John Coltrane, who collaborated for a brief six months. First of all, the sound quality really isn't so great; rather than warm and 'present', it's somewhat metallic and distant, just what one might expect amid the hard corners and squared seats of a concert hall rather than a club. I can't help hearing the sedate silence of a Carnegie Hall audience in this performance, in a kind of careful formalization of supposedly improvised licks played for the approbation of ticket-buyers. Hey, maybe I'm just projecting, but I don't 'hear' Monk or 'Trane discovering each other on this stage.



And then ... I'll crawl way out on the limb, with a saw in each hand, and say that Coltrane and Monk were not a match made in musical heaven. Monk was the coolest of the hot and Coltrane was the hottest of the cool. Monk was the most cerebral bebopper of all, even more abstract in his stylings than Lenny Tristano. His enormous hands and his awareness of his technical weaknesses served his spare, aloof phrasing perfectly. The best few minutes on this CD are Monk's solo explorations of tonality on the first track, his own composition "Monk's Mood". He finds his way through a thicket of chromaticism worthy of Gesualdo or Bach. Coltrane, for all his signature flurries of freedom, was at heart a melodist, a balladeer with spasms of frantic energy. His most engrossing choruses on this CD, for me, come on the up-tempo tracks, especially "Sweet and Lovely". Monk and Coltrane could contrast brilliantly but they couldn't coalesce."

Definitive Jazz

R. O'NEILL | Dublin, Ireland | 11/11/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At last I have found accessible jazz. I have been looking for something like this for years. Always wanted to listen to some jazz but was unlucky with the selections. This is perfect. Just pop on the CD and kick back and relax."