Jams_Runt

Anyway, so thanks to this thread I checked out Rouse's Bossa Nova Bacchanal for the first time in ages. (I tend to listen to Sphere or when he played as a side man with Waldron, when I want to listen to Rouse.) This is such a great little date. Kinda house Blue Note in style and kinda different too. A sweet spot for me. Will have to put this in the rotation more often. And for what it's worth, Rouse's playing here sounds a lot looser than with Monk. I've got to check out Yeah! sometime.

Easy there Scott, I had the wits to think you would have more to say about Rouse outside the context of Monk since that was originally the context of this whole discussion. Guess not. You must be really fun at parties.

I have no idea what the "when in Rome..." comment means. You made your point clearly, I just thought that you might have been interested in what else Monk's "most sympathetic and tuned in Tenor player" played throughout his career. I guess not. Cool. Wasn't trying to trap you, just trying to move the conversation along.

I love Trane with Monk, but I like Trane as Trane better on Impulse, even though I like Monk better than McCoy Tyner. We are talking about obviously subjective things here. I can see people not agreeing with the idea that Rouse was a better player after playing with Monk, but I don't see why such a statement is dissing Rouse in any way. Nor is saying Rouse is no Coltrane or Sonny Rollins. Who was? Scott, I'm glad you dig Rouse with Monk. No one is trying to stop you. Do you like Rouse's work after he was with Monk? Do you think his style evolved because of his time with Monk? A lot of the people you are arguing with think so.

Sphere got more interesting the further they strayed from Monk.

But we are talking about Monk and Rouse. The context of the discussion dictates that we are talking about the relationship between a band leader and a sideman. Words have literal meanings, and they also have meaning within specific contexts. What do you want out of this? That it is rediculous to say Rouse was enslaved by Monk? Um... Yep... we are all in agreement, that sure is a rediculous thing to say. So uh, Scott, what are some of your favorite Rouse albums within or without the context of Monk? I dig Criss-Cross and It's Monk time, as well as his run with Sphere.

It could mean that Rouse was a very decent if relatively uninspired sideman who stayed in his lane when he played with Monk and didn't bring the full force of his own personality to the gig. And to be clear I'm talking about uninspired next to folks like Trane, Rollins Griffin, Jones and Lucky Thompson. That slave talk is one extreme way of reading what is being said, but it's far too over the top for me. The Columbia's sound like the music of a working band, and I dig that, and it's straight up great Monk, but my only point was Rouse doesn't stand out to me more than Dunlop or Riley or Orr etc... he stays in his lane and solos when he is supposed to, but I've listened to these recordings dozens if not hundreds of times and I could probably hum a Dunlop solo before I could a Rouse one.

Oh I know it is Monk's show, but Trane at the Carnegie Hall date, and Rollins on Brilliant Corners are both great in ways that are fully if a piece with what we love about Trane or Rollins at that time. On the other hand, even Rouse's solos feel like a form of accompaniment. Nothing wrong with it, but as soloists even in a Monkian context I'll take Trane, Rollins, Henry or That Jones any day. While I'm at it, I'm down with Dunlkp. Art Taylor is my least fav Monk drummer, but Larry's point about the cutesy aspect of Dunlop's playing is well taken. Dude, Scott you bring up master/slave stuff, then bring up strawman arguments? That's rich.

By the time Monk was on Columbia Rouse kind of became part of the rhythm section in my mind. Everyone in the MG's added something to Otis Redding, but I don't listen to Otis for the MGs. Same thing with Rouse and Monk. Rouse is in no way the co-star of that band. Rouse 's voice is far stronger elsewhere. Weird how I like his playing on Monk tunes with Sphere better than his playing with Monk, though, of course, I like the Monk Monk stuff more.

My comment about Peterson not leaving space was during his comping for other soloists. I'll take your word for it that he leaves some space on "Georgia On My Mind". My ears have been wrecked by Monk. I listen to jazz for different things than Peterson is usually about, although Larry has me interested from his original post.

Guy, I couldn't agree more.

I should listen to some more of Peterson's stuff as a leader. I mostly know him as part of the rhythm section on old Verve albums, but he leaves so little breathing room in his comping that I've never really wanted to explore further. Maybe I'll check out some of his earlier work. As to the comments about Monk, surely OP and Monk had such different goals, it makes sense to me that OP never got Monk as a pianist. Can't really blame him.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22961-monks-music/ It's Ben Ratcliff so you get what you get, but it's cool to see Monk get the Pitchfork seal of approval. With the circles I run in far more people read Pitchfork for music than the New York Times.

CJ, I may check it out if I ever stumble upon it. And seriously I think this backwards post-late Gil Evans thing would work much better with Hancock than Monk, and having said that, the Hancock disc looks like its a different thing completely. Though, after hearing Monkestra, its going to have to be cheap to get me to check it out, because oof! Oddly enough I checked Monkestra out after the grammy nod because some of the press talked about Monk for the 21st Century, but to my ears a lot of jazz in the 21st century just plain hasn't caught up with all of the implications of Monk. And then I hear the thing, and yeah, okay, that is 21st century jazz, but it is of such a specific and narrow time and place that it just doesn't feel like it really adds anything to the discussion other than LA Big Bands be LA Big Bands. I have now written way more about this album than I have albums I truly, deeply love. I'm off to listen to 5 by Monk by 5.

Hey, if people dig it more power to them, amazon reviewers, forum members, grammy voters etc... but as per usual it seems like Jim gets to the bottom of it for me. This is indeed some California shit. And sure, Monk's name sells, but Davis or Hancock would probably sell better. Just be glad you didn't post 'Round Midnight.

I totally agree about Russell's take on Monk, but from the little evidence we have Dolphy really got Monk on a special level. I have not listened to Beasley's tribute to Hancock. Is it any better? I can see how his general approach would be, um, less offensive applied to Hancock than Monk, but nothing about Monkestra makes me particularly interested in checking out more of his work. To my ears it sounds like he simply doesn't understand what makes the source material compelling at least as far as Monk is concerned. This isn't a new thought, but I think Monk is a strange case when it comes to others playing his tunes. While anyone playing Monk will probably want to put their own spin on it, Monk inhabits his own world as far as harmony and timing is concerned. When you start substituting Monk's approach for more "hip" chords Monk begins to disappear. The same thing happens with the timing. Marcus Roberts did a solo piano version of "Blue Monk" on one of his early solo albums, I forget the name, but it is the one that had Rouse on it, and Roberts plays the "wrong notes" correctly, but by keeping the tempo straight, without those weird but perfectly timed pauses Monk was prone to in his solo performances, it just sounds like stride, which is fine, but really lets you see what Monk brought to the game as a performer. I'm not saying that people have to play Monk exactly like Monk did, after all I'm not even sure Monk would have liked what Dolphy did to his music, but I do think that at the very least you have to understand why Monk did what he did before you start messing with it. Which is why this Beasley album confuses me so much. By all accounts Beasley has spent a long time with Monk's music, and yet you drop almost any track off of this album on one of Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band albums and it wouldn't sound out of place at all. Which brings me back to my original question, who listens to Gordon Goodwin and goes "I wonder what that cat could do with "Epistrophy"?

I'm mostly a lurker here, since after years of reading this forum I know I know little enough about jazz that I'll learn more by just shutting up and following the discussions, but I've been on a heavy Monk kick for over five years now, and after reading some fairly decent press for John Beasley Presents Monk'estra Vol. 1, I've got to say this album has me completely baffled. It's kind of a smooth jazz/ show band version of Monk tunes. I guess if you had a lot of wax build up you could kind of hear some late Gil Evans in it, but mostly it is just slick, slick, slick. Now I understand why slick big band jazz exists, and I know Monk has a certain kind of cultural cache, and its clear from reading up on the dude John Beasley has been exploring Monk for years, but this late in the game is there really an audience for this kind of slick showy big band music being done to poor old Monk? I mean although it is not at all my thing I get the hip-hop sheen Kamasi Washington puts on recycled Lonnie Liston Smith, but THIS to Monk, really? Does anybody have any idea who this album is for, and does it work for them? I don't mean to crap on anybody's passion project, but I figure this would be the place to bring it up, because I don't think I've been this confused by the existence of a particular jazz album in a longtime. Thanks for the thoughtful replies in advance.

I began the year listening to the second Charlie Haden/ Hank Jones duets album. By this point Jones is playing at less than half strength, but you can tell there is a love of the tunes he's playing and a lot of love between the musicians. Nothing fancy, but beautiful.

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" Roswell Rudd's Trombone For Lovers.

All this is why I will only steal Definitive collections off the internet. I kid... I kid...

I've gone totally Monk crazy for the last three years or so, and it was Ethan Iverson's fundamentalism in regards to Monk's harmony's that got me interested in Iverson's music again. I'm really digging this. Mark Turner's playing never really moved me before, but I think I've caught up with what he's doing. Very interesting for a mostly inside date.

I tend to lurk more than write on this forum, as I feel that most of the regular posters know a helluva lot more about the music than I do. I've been following this discussion. In my heart I want to disagree with JSngry, but when I looked at the new jazz I buy these days, only two artists can't join AARP. (Michael Blake and Hafez Modirzadeh.) Most of the jazz I love was made decades ago, or made by folks like Vonski and Roswell Rudd. I can't so much say that the party is over, but it is definitely winding down. I was one of those kids that was wowed by Joshua Redman fifteen years ago. It was a really Rollinesque version of Monk's Friday the 13th that knocked me out, then I heard his pops on In London, and it opened the door to all the post-bop that came before. Within weeks Redman Jr. ceased to be relevant for me. Eric Anderson is not on my radar, and from reading this thread, I don't see that changing any time soon.

I'm not so sure if the new pricing is fairer or not. If all albums are capped at 12 downloads per then maybe, but as it stands I just went through my saved for later list well over half of the albums I had in my saved for later went from 4 to 10 downloads to 12. Meanwhile almost all of the albums I that had more than 12 tracks are now no longer available or are not capped. This is purely anecdotal evidence, but with my price per download going from 25 cents to 40 cents, this new price scheme feels to me like a jazz tax. I'd probably stick around if emusic was not a subscription service, but the new model means there is no real difference between emusic and amazon.com mp3.

I've clearly gotten myself in over my head here. I know for a fact people have downloaded this guy's music from Emusic. I do not know how the emusic model works, but I swear I read that each actual download cost emusic 40 cents, but that they charged less with the goal of making money on the unused downloads. I know that they have had financial problems recently, and I assume this is why some musicians and their labels might not have seen the money, (although I am also sure that it is a small amount we are talking here.) I am going to shut up now, because I have been frantically looking for the article I mentioned and I have been getting nowhere. I always hate it when I read some crackpot theory that someone backs up with "I read this somewhere I swear..." and I now see I have turned into that exact crackpot.

I guess I wasn't too clear. The jazz artist said that his label hasn't seen a dime from emusic. Also, I tried to find the article, but I read that the licensing fee emusic paid to labels was closer to 40 cents a download. They were charged almost half that with the expectation that not everyone would use all their downloads. It was not a sustainable business model.