Genius of Modern Music Volume 2

This is the second half of Thelonious Monk's Blue Note years. How he came to the label, and the first of these sessions, are told in the notes for Genius of Modern Music Volume 1 (BLP 1510). Ira Gitler wrote the notes for both, and here he picks up where he left off. Where the first volume stays in 1947 and 1948, this one reaches forward to 1951 and 1952, the last Monk dates for Blue Note before he went to Prestige.

All five days were at WOR Studios in New York. Three are from the autumn of 1947: the sextet with Idrees Sulieman, Danny Quebec West and Billy Smith on October 15, the trio with Eugene Ramey and Art Blakey on October 24, and the quintet with George Taitt and Edmund Gregory, later Sahib Shihab, on November 21. On July 23, 1951, Monk had Shihab again, with Milt Jackson, Al McKibbon and Blakey. On May 30, 1952, he led a sextet with Kenny Dorham, Lou Donaldson, Lucky Thompson, Nelson Boyd and Max Roach.

Side one opens with that last date. Gitler hears "Carolina Moon", an old pop tune Monk turns into a 6/4 waltz, as:

an example of how to get away from the usual jazz beat and still swing

Ira Gitler, original liner notes

"Hornin' In", "Skippy" and "Let's Cool One" follow, with solos from Donaldson, Dorham and Thompson. The side ends in 1947 with "Suburban Eyes", by Ike Quebec, who had brought Monk to the label, and "Evonce", which Quebec wrote with Sulieman.

Side two starts with "Straight, No Chaser" and "Four in One", which reunite Monk with Jackson, Shihab and Blakey. "Nice Work", the Gershwin song, is from the 1947 trio. In "Monk's Mood" the horns carry the theme around Monk's piano, and Gitler hears sadness with a little hope in it. After the up-tempo "Who Knows", the record ends with "Ask Me Now", from 1951, with the horns and vibes sitting out:

Ask Me Now, done at the same session with just the trio, is worthy of the earlier great trio performances.

Ira Gitler, original liner notes

Our session listing shows the whole 1951 quintet for that day; Wikipedia, like Gitler, has only Monk, McKibbon and Blakey on "Ask Me Now". The discography's Robert Paige and Eugene Ramey are Bob Paige and Gene Ramey on Wikipedia.

Kennedy Brown, reviewing it for Jazz Journal in 1962, said that "no collector should miss it." When Blue Note reissued the music on CD in 1989, this volume also took in the 1951 tracks that had first appeared on Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet (BLP 1509).