"Complete" Monk and Coltrane at the 5 Spot.

[medjuck]

Maybe everybody but me already knows about this, but when I was buying something on Amazon this popped up:

"Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane Complete Live At The Five Spot 1958". It contains 2 more tracks than were issued on the Bluenote cd and Monk box set.

[l p]

these 2 tunes

[romualdo]

they are "Ruby" & "Nutty" - were released on the Gambit (Sp) CD "Complete At The Five Spot 1958"

Lord has these titles with the 5 that were released by Blue Note (Sept 11, 58) whereas Kelley lists these 2 tracks as coming from Late July/Early August 1957 (Ware & Wilson) from a private tape in possession of the Monk family

How did Gambit get a hold of these - were they broadcast?

[Caravan]

they are "Ruby" & "Nutty" - were released on the Gambit (Sp) CD "Complete At The Five Spot 1958"

Lord has these titles with the 5 that were released by Blue Note (Sept 11, 58) whereas Kelley lists these 2 tracks as coming from Late July/Early August 1957 (Ware & Wilson) from a private tape in possession of the Monk family

How did Gambit get a hold of these - were they broadcast?

They could be listened to at the Monk website that was maintained by Tootie Monk (I think) some 12-15 years ago (the site that also sold cd's on the "Thelonious" label). Doesn't exist anymore.

They are certainly from the 1957 group with Wilson, and although the bassist is hardly audible, I think it's Ware, it probably being from the early stage of the quartet.

Edited April 16, 2015 by caravan

[JSngry]

So, what is being said here...that the legendary Naima Coltrane tape of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson quartet that turned out to "be" the Monk/Trane/Abdul-Malik/Haynes album are also REAL recordings of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson quartet after all, and that the big "discovery" release either lied to us or didn't know any better, or what,exactly?

Because that Naima tape of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson quartet, that tapes of that quartet, was mentioned in Joe Goldberg's Jazz Masters Of The 1950s, and that book came out in 1965,and if I'm recollecting my hype correctly, the "discovery" record purported, either directly or indirectly, to but to rest the legend that that tape of that quartet actually existed, and that these tapes were that tape, sorry, game over, mystery solved, sorry we didn't notice the need for any pitch corrections, but still and all gottdamn, right?

And now, but wait, there's more? For real?

[felser]

[JSngry]

What's truly dizzying is that the original legend might actually be true.

[John L]

So, what is being said here...that the legendary Naima Coltrane tape of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson quartet that turned out to "be" the Monk/Trane/Abdul-Malik/Haynes album are also REAL recordings of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson quartet after all, and that the big "discovery" release either lied to us or didn't know any better, or what,exactly?

Because that Naima tape of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson quartet, that tapes of that quartet, was mentioned in Joe Goldberg's Jazz Masters Of The 1950s, and that book came out in 1965,and if I'm recollecting my hype correctly, the "discovery" record purported, either directly or indirectly, to but to rest the legend that that tape of that quartet actually existed, and that these tapes were that tape, sorry, game over, mystery solved, sorry we didn't notice the need for any pitch corrections, but still and all gottdamn, right?

And now, but wait, there's more? For real?

Are you saying that we suspect that the Five Spot recording originally released on Blue Note might be the Naima tape with Ware and Wilson?

This is a very interesting discussion. That fact is that Rudy My Dear and Nutty sound like they are coming from a different source than the rest of the concert. Coltrane is much stronger in the mix and the echo distortion is gone. What Romualdo is suggesting sounds logical - that at least these two tracks could be from an earlier date when Coltrane was still a member of the working quartet - although Jim seems to be suggesting that the other tracks might also be from an earlier vintage.

Edited April 17, 2015 by John L

[JSngry]

What I'm saying is that I seem to recall the BN CD of the Abdul-Malik/Haynes group claiming to be THE legendary Naima Monk/Trane tape, and that the legend that for decades had that tape as being of the Ware/Wilson quartet was not really the case at all. Ok, I could accept that.

But now there's another Naima tape that IS of the Ware/Wilson band, so does that mean that there is more of it than thiese two cuts, or that this is all that has survived, or this has only fairly recently been discovered? Or what?

Perhaps I'm in the minority of having heard the stories/legends about the Naima tape of the Ware/Wilson band for so many years that the fact that the finally released tape was not THAT band was a little, just a little, bit of a letdown. But again, that's ok. Legends/rumors/all that, that's a part of life, and never be too surprised or too disappointed when that happens.

However...if that legend turns out to be tangibly true, then put me down in the Shamelessly Greedy Column, where they list the people who want to hear ALL of it ASAP, BAMN.

Maybe to put it another way - never have I heard of their possibly being TWO legendary Naima Monk/Trane tapes until now.

[medjuck]

I believe that the first release called "Discovery" said the set was by the 1957 group. The Blue Not box set includes notes by Bob Blumenthal which state

"...the bassist and drummer were clearly not Wilbur Ware and Shadow Wilson, who had completed Monk's quartet as the album notes mistakenly listed. Further research has determined that the performances were taped on September 11, 1958 when bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik and drummer Roy Haynes were regulars in Monk's quartet ad Coltrane was sitting in for the absent Johnny Griffin. What we hear, from a source tape made by Coltrane's wife Naima, is a complete set..."

The notes also say " on the original CD issue of this session, the pitch ran 1/2 step too high."

When I get "the complete" cd I'll see what they say about the dates etc.

[JSngry]

Ok, here's what the Discovery liner notes say:

This is a major new document in recorded jazz, and Coltrane himself tipped us off about it. In Jazz Hot magazine, Paris, January 1962, Francis Postif an interview in which Coltrane talked about his engagement with Monk. (I translate from the french - Postif does not have a tape). We didn't officially make a recording live at the Five Spot, but I console myself with those that my wife made on our tape recorder.I listened to that, on occasion, and I feel a little nostalgic!" The contents of this issue are everything that Coltrane listened to with such pleasure...Coltrane's words seem to suggest more material, but this is all that exists.)

And then they detail the personnel (correctly) and how Trane came to be on the stand that night.and how Abdul-Malik had taken Ware's gig. So, Discovery was ALWAYS clear about who the band was.

But here's the back story that nobody talked about after this came out, and I guess nobody was too bummed out about Discovery to be concerned with it. to consider that, yes, this is much more than we expected, but this is NOT what we had expected and hoped for..

Here's Goldberg, first from the chapter on Monk, then from the one about Trane:

Until 1961 it was thought that the quartet had not recorded due to contractual difficulties....But Riversides' subsidiary Jazz land finally released three tracks by the group...It is, however, a studio recording, and only the frighteningly difficult Trinkle Trinkle approximates the great excitement the group was able to generate in person, but it is good that some documentation exists of the greatest of Monk.s groups.

That summer (1957) Monk added...Philly Joe Jones and formed a quartet which he took into New York's Five Spot Cafe....The unit which resulted, one of the greatest in modern jazz, was unfortunately never recorded. although Riverside released three tracks with Jones' replacement, the late Shadow Wilson. Coltrane, however, has some tapes made at the club, and "I really treasure them."

Somewhere later down the road I read a few times about "Coltrane's wife" having these tapes, and it all sounds like what was being talked about was just live at the Five Spot, summer of 1957, Monk, Trane, Ware, and either PJJ or Shadow Wilson, one of the most electrifying bands to hit NYC ever, and only caught in action at their peak by Naima Coltrane. This is the impression that lingered for years until the Discovery CD came out, and it was revealed that the mythic Naima Coltrane tapes were NOT of the Summer Of 57 band after all,,,shucks. And in fairness, the premise that it was otherwise was a set of assumptions put together in one context, when the reality may well have occurred in another. Assumptions combined with wishes male for a powerful intoxicant.

But now, here come two tracks that show that there ARE Naima Coltrane Summer Of 57 tapes after all, at least a cut and a half.and THAT'S what I want to know - WTF is THIS all about? Was the tapes that Trane was treasuring and digging and Goldberg was referencing and everybody just assuming about, were they actually the 58 tapes, or maybe the 57 tapes (which may no longer exists in as full a form as they once did? Or was it all of that those AND maybe some OTHER Summer of 57 tapes as well?

Because as nice as Discovery is (or was, once it got pitch-corrected)....the Summer of 57 band is the one that legends sprung up around, THAT was the band to hear, and if there's a full set or two by THAT band that still exists, I say that we got powned just a little bit by Discovery, that we were so eager to taste the legend that we were easy prey. Because by the 1958 sets, the initial impact of that gig had already happened, it was already a legend, Trane was just subbing in 1958, ok?.This was not him going to his gig in 19578, this was him going to A gig in 1958. A tape of the legend being made in real time, Trane ON the gig in 1957 instead of subbing on it in 1958, making those breakthroughs on a live mike, hell. now THAT....that would be sweeter than sweet.

If these two 1957 pieces had never surfaced, I'd go about my business happy and content...but now that I know that there's the possibility of the REAL "Discovery"...hmmmmm.

[Caravan]

I don't understand what the confusion is all about. The "Naima tapes", released as Discovery on Blue Note, have Haynes and Malik. In the first release this was said to be from 1957, but it was later clarified that it really is 1958, when Coltrane subbed for Griffin for one or more nights (Rollins also subbed for Griffin during that period). It was recorded by Coltrane's then wife Naima.

Nutty and Ruby clearly have Wilson (and most probably Ware) and are from 1957, likely recorded during the first days or weeks of the group's stay at the Five Spot. Coltrane was developing fast during this time and the difference in his approach between this and the 1958 tape is enormous. Nobody (as far as I know) says that Nutty and Ruby were recorded by Naima. More likely, they were recorded by Nica. There were more recordings by Nica at the Monk website some 12-15 years ago, some of which were released on the Thelonious label (for instance 1958 recordings with Rouse - and Haynes and Malik - from the Five Spot, when he had replaced Griffin).

[AllenLowe]

say that again?

[l p]

yes, since the 12min segment came from the monk family, it was probably recorded by nica or nellie monk. there were some recordings by nellie on that old site too. and even if it was not recorded by these two, then by someone who gave the tape to the monk family (not naima).

[JSngry]

There is no confusion about anything, just a curiosity if there are more Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson tapes from 1957 that have yet to see the light of public release.

Decades of "mythology" have implied that there were.

The Discovery CD seemed to imply that there never had been any. But now we know that there are at least two tunes worth. So - is there more?

I don't know where the notion that Discovery originally claimed to be the 1957 band is coming from. It give the recording date as "late Summer 1957" but that's it. It gets the players right the first time out.

yes, since the 12min segment came from the monk family, it was probably recorded by nica or nellie monk. there were some recordings by nellie on that old site too. and even if it was not recorded by these two, then by someone who gave the tape to the monk family (not naima).

Well, ok, some sensible logic about this. Thank you.

[John L]

The confusion refers to the fact that Ruby My Dear and Nutty are listed on the released CD and in the Lord Discography as being from the same 1958 concert. It would seem that this is not true.

[John L]

They are certainly from the 1957 group with Wilson, and although the bassist is hardly audible, I think it's Ware, it probably being from the early stage of the quartet.

This actually leads me to suspect that we are talking about two different recordings of Ruby My Dear and Nutty. On the Gambit CD, the bassist is clearly audible on these tracks. It does sound to me more like Ware on bass - the approach is more similar to the studio recording of Nutty with Ware than the Carnegie Hall recording with Malik.

[JSngry]

I don't read Lord, so maybe that's why I'm not confused about that part of it.

Really not confused about anything really, just looking for the possibility of there being a different way of connecting the dots to determine if there might be a fuller set of recordings from the Summer Of 57 band. l p's excellent point suggests that if they are, they're likely not from Naima Coltrane,

But the Goldberg quotes which seem to imply that there are/were private recordings of that band never mention Naima, it just says that "Coltrane has some tapes made at the club" of that band, so the possibility still exists that there were tapes made of that band as well as of the sub gig of 1958. If there were, they would appear to be under the Monk family province instead of the Trane family's.

That is the gig that I've be dieing to hear for decades now, Summer of 57, Monk/Trane/Ware/Wilson (or even Philly? I had forgotten that Philly was the original drummer in that band, thanks again Joe Goldberg, the book that continues to give for over 40 years now). Coltrane making his big personal and musical breakthroughs, Monk finally coming out into the light of general public availability, Wilbur Ware, for whom there is no equal substitute, words like "legendary", "electrifying", "monumental", "life changing" keep popping up in reference to this gig. The Discovery gig was cool and all that, but it's not THAT gig, The closest so far that has seen general distribution has been the 11/57 Carnegie Hall concert, but Ware's already gone by then. It's winter, not summer.

This little bit of actual Summer 57 music (if that's really what it is) whets the appetite for a full set, or possibly sets, of one of the greater undocumented bands of the 20th century to someday see full, commercial release. How do you not get excited about that?

And while we're at it, how do you not wonder how playing a full summer with Wilbur Ware influenced Coltrane to finally make Jimmy Garrison his home bass/base? Hadn't considered that until just now, but, think about it.

[John L]

OK, this is the same as the two tracks on the Gambit CD, although the bass has more presence on the CD than it does here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go0Ft6ZDYpk

[king ubu]

This thread is about as confusing as the "Discovery" CD, which surely wasn't "always clear" - there was a first print with the 1957 line-up and date, and then - purportedly, I never saw it - a "corrected" one. I've got the material in the four disc set Blue Note put out of their entire Monk output, the speed-fixed version of that tape.

Obviously, though, I'd love to hear more of it as well!

[AllenLowe]

_{say that again?}

[Clunky]

I'm also confused - not new.

[JSngry]

What I'm interested in is getting to the discovery of whatever live recordings exist of the Summer 1957 gigs of the Monk/Trane/Ware/Jones-or-Wilson band.

That band, that gig.

It would be at most a slight exaggeration to compare (based on all contemporary and historical accounts) that summer for Trane to the "Dan Wall's Chili House" gig for Bird, the moment when everything came into focus and started coming out of the horn.

To that end, I just had a look at Orrin Keepnews' Producer's Notes" to M-47011 the Milestone Monk/Trane twofer from 1973, and found this useful chronological note:

The original recording sheets for the Side 1 quartet dates cannot be located, and my memory does not tell me with any real clarity when these three selections were recorded. But I do recall that it must have been a "reconstruction" of of the original Five Spot quartet, because Wilbur Ware was replaced in mid-August 1957 (I am certain of that, because it happened the night following an early afternoon Monk-Gerry Mulligan session - a story I'll tell in more detail when we release that material). And in the early months of the Five Spot engagement, our desire to work out some reciprocal arrangements with Prestige Records, who had 'Trane under contract, was frustrated by Monk's refusal to do anything with Prestige, his years with that label having ended, in 1955, on a personally and professionally unhappy note.

Eventually, as I piece it together in my mind, we were moved by a feeling of desperation: Monk and 'Trane seemed close to going their separate ways and nothing had been taped. So we went into the studio to set somethiing down and at least hold it for posterity. (I had hopes that when Coltrane left Prestige he would move to Riverside, but that didn't work out.) Monk had a totally new group by July 1958 (when we recorded that quartet at the Five Spot ), leaving me with "Spring 1958" as the most logical guess.

So...if there is to be any material from the actually Summer of 1957 gig, be it with either Wilson or Jones but definitely with Ware, it's a pretty small window - from ""Summer" (what, May? June?) 1957 to no later than August 13, 1957.

If what the Monk family posted on their now-defunct website (and what Gambit has since stolen/released) is actually from that gig, that's the window for it.

But that's a minor issue, really, a statistic. The bigger question is this - do they have more from within that same window, and if so, how much?

We'll not get to hear Bird at Dan Wall's Chili House, but if we can get to hear Trane at the Five Spot with Monk/Ware/Jones-or-Wilson, how much chili would THAT be, eh?

[medjuck]

OK I've received the cd and listened a couple of times. I think the two cuts are from a different session that the first five. I can hardly hear the bass but the drummer doesn't sound like Roy Haynes to me. None of his "snap, crackle" on the snare and way more ride cymbal than he uses. Also sounds more like Coltrane in '56 than Coltrane in '58 to me.

So maybe JSngry dos get to hear 2 cuts form the summer of '57. And of course I could be wrong. (I often am.) BTW the on-line Coltrane discography lists all 7 cuts as being from 1958.

[Caravan]

DeVito et al. (2013), The John Coltrane Reference (paperback edition), p. 475:

Nutty & Ruby, probably ca. July 18-Aug. 12, 1957, Five Spot, NYC, Coltrane, Monk, Ware, Wilson.

"Private recording probably made by Nellie Monk. Wilbur Ware and Shadow Wilson are identified based on aural evidence; assuming Ware is the bassist, the date was probably between July 18 and August 12, 1957 (Ware's last day). Coltrane's playing suggests that this recording probably predates the studio session [of the same tunes, with the same personnel]."

For the moment, that's all that can be said about it.