Playing Monk Tunes

[AllenLowe]

yeah, I was exaggerating, he's not the dullest in the Universe - but maybe the dullest of any tenor with a good reputation - it's just, to me, that in the midst of all this interesting music, he sounds so damn conventional, and not even as a usefoil foil to Monk - just conventional. As I said, I don't want to start a war here, but I get the feeling he was just the guy who showed up on time and knew the music.

Interesting sidebar - I saw Monk at the Village Vanguard, circa 1969 or 1970, and he had Pat Patrick playing tenor - and I remember thinking, wow, this guy fits the music nicely. Of course I was a teen than, but that's how I recall it (I also recall that Monk kept introducing "WIlbur Ware on bass," when the bassist was clearly someone else - sorry I don't remember who) -

[Soul Stream]

I'm a huge Rouse fan. He was my favorite tenor with Monk. He was Monk's perfect foil (sorry Allen!). Like Miles was to Coltrane. Rouse was to Monk in a way. Their playing offset each other perfectly imho. Of course Coltrane, Griffin, ect...I know, I know...let the stoning begin! *my wishy washy uneducated opinions are always subect to change depending on whom I'm talking to...!

Allen, did you get a chance to see Monk play much? What was it like?

Edited August 20, 2005 by Soul Stream

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Had to be 1970 for Pat Patrick with Monk. There were Vanguard gigs in January, February, March, and May. Unfortunately the Sheridan book doesn't shed any light on the bassist, listing only Wilbur Ware while the drummers in the quartet shifted from Ed Blackwell to Beaver Harris to Leroy Williams. I don't believe I've ever heard Patrick playing tenor and I wish I could. Though the thought of him playing baritone with Monk is even more tantalizing.

The thing that works about Rouse with Monk for me is his tone and his clipped phrasing. But in terms of his actual lines, I think he's much more standard bebop than Monk.

Mike

[MartyJazz]

yeah, I was exaggerating, he's not the dullest in the Universe - but maybe the dullest of any tenor with a good reputation - it's just, to me, that in the midst of all this interesting music, he sounds so damn conventional, and not even as a usefoil foil to Monk - just conventional.  As I said, I don't want to start a war here, but I get the feeling he was just the guy who showed up on time and knew the music.

Interesting sidebar - I saw Monk at the Village Vanguard, circa 1969 or 1970, and he had Pat Patrick playing tenor - and I remember thinking, wow, this guy fits the music nicely. Of course I was a teen than, but that's how I recall it (I also recall that Monk kept introducing "WIlbur Ware on bass," when the bassist was clearly someone else - sorry I don't remember who) -

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Wow, I just checked my tape "archives" and I do have a brief 24 minute tape ("I Mean You" and "Straight No Chaser") of a Monk quartet at the Jazz Workshop in Boston in February 1970. Personnel includes Pat Patrick (on tenor), Wilbur Ware and Beaver Harris. There I was trying to see who could be the bass player around the time you saw this group but my listing says it's Ware, at least in Boston if not at the Vanguard.

Re the earlier point you make about Rouse, I don't think it was just that he "showed up on time and knew the music" (the latter alone would make him more than just "conventional"), rather if you study the documentary on Monk, "Straight No Chaser", one comes away with the feeling that Rouse understood Monk's eccentricities and was a very important intermediary in making sure events and concerts went off as well as could be expected.

Edited August 20, 2005 by MartyJazz

[AllenLowe]

well, memory does play tricks, but I just remember there was some buzz in the audience, as Ware had sent in a substitute - I think - but this was 35 years ago -

I heard Monk in person only threee times - the first time was at the Vanguard, and he was energetic and amazing. There was another time, somewhere I cannot recall, and he also excellent - the LAST time I saw him was a year or so later, 1970-71 perhaps - it was as part of the Schaefer Beer Central Park music series - maybe someone can check the dates - I believe he only had a trio, not certain, but I recall no horn - and he was practically catatonic, he barely played -

[JSngry]

I came to like/appreciate/whatever Rouse a lot more once I began playing the tunes myself. Still not my "favorite" Monk tenorist (that would probably be Rollins), but I too once found him virtually "unlistenable", whereas today I find him anything but. Interesting on a sustained basis, though, is another matter altogether. I think he actually played "better" away from Monk's orb. But that's another matter...

And oh, yeah - make mine Dunlop. More than Blakey (although not "officially"), Max, Roy, etc.

[JSngry]

I think the more you look at a Monk tune, you realise how wonderfully engineered they are. Sure, the changes are usually a refreshing change from the I-VI-II-V-I standard fare etc., but the way he uses melodic shapes so subtly...

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Now, there's something that doesn't get commented on nearly as much as it should. A lot of Monk's tunes (not all, certainly, but a lot) ignore (or at the least, downplay) the implied single key center that a I-vi-ii-V progression creates. Instead, the consist of blocks of dominant chords that, when traced from beginning to end, create a bold but logical journey, each stop along the way creating a zone. The symmetry of these structures is as organic and, again, logical as it is bold. They very sound "mathematically", if you know what I mean.

Even the tunes where he uses a I-vi-ii-V progression as the foundation gets tweaked. Take "Bemsha Swing" - the changes of that tune are an exercise (hell, a textbook!) in different ways to apply tritone substitutions over the most basic of progressions.

With Monk's music, moreso than most "songs" digging into the micro reveals the macro, and vice-versa. Get a grip on one and discover the other, over and over and over. It's the never-ending spiral of logical genius.

[MartyJazz]

Thanks for the link. That answers the question re Monk's allegiance to Rouse pretty well, I think.

[JSngry]

Indeed. And it also shows that what "the public" thinks the music is/ought to be "about" and what the players themselves think about same only sometimes intersect.

[mikeweil]

"Bye-Ya" is a stand out for me.

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Now that had some unidentified person playing the son clavé pattern on the original Prestige recording .....

Several tunes would work extremely well with a "tresillo" bass pattern instead of 4/4 walking, just as many Morton or Joplin tunes (tresillo is notes on 1, 2+, 4 - the first half of the clave and the basis of many Cuban style bass patterns, or tumbaos.as they are called). Try Blue Monk with it - works surprisingly well!

[Alexander Hawkins]

I think the more you look at a Monk tune, you realise how wonderfully engineered they are. Sure, the changes are usually a refreshing change from the I-VI-II-V-I standard fare etc., but the way he uses melodic shapes so subtly...

←

Now, there's something that doesn't get commented on nearly as much as it should. A lot of Monk's tunes (not all, certainly, but a lot) ignore (or at the least, downplay) the implied single key center that a I-vi-ii-V progression creates. Instead, the consist of blocks of dominant chords that, when traced from beginning to end, create a bold but logical journey, each stop along the way creating a zone. The symmetry of these structures is as organic and, again, logical as it is bold. They very sound "mathematically", if you know what I mean.

Even the tunes where he uses a I-vi-ii-V progression as the foundation gets tweaked. Take "Bemsha Swing" - the changes of that tune are an exercise (hell, a textbook!) in different ways to apply tritone substitutions over the most basic of progressions.

With Monk's music, moreso than most "songs" digging into the micro reveals the macro, and vice-versa. Get a grip on one and discover the other, over and over and over. It's the never-ending spiral of logical genius.

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Agreed, on almost all counts! A nice example of the 'tweaked' I-vi-ii-V progression is 'Shuffle Boil'.

This thread's inspired me to spend most of the day with my Monk fake book. It's just awesome.

BTW, I think in a post up above I mentioned 'Oska T.' This is a weird, and in some ways pretty un-Monk-like tune - modal, effectively (just the one chord all the way through). I wonder if there's a story here?

[JSngry]

"Locomotive" is like that too.

There is a story behind the title of "Oska T", but I can't remember what it is...

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Although DJ Oscar Treadwell has claimed it's for him, the more accepted story is that the title is a remant from the Japanese tour so Oska T means Ask Thelonious, putting it in the category of "procrastinating" titles like Worry Later, Let's Call This, Ask Me Now, Think Of One.

Mike

[AllenLowe]

interesting, because if you read that Lacy quote closely about Rouse (in the Phoenix piece), he pretty much says EXACTLY what I said about Monk's preference for Rouse:

"Sonny Rollins wasn't always available. Whereas Rouse stayed with him. "

Sometimes you gotta read between the lines...

Edited August 21, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Soul Stream]

Ya'll are crazy. You're acting like Rouse wasn't a good, qualified cream of the crop player. If he wasn't, no way Monk would have had him play his music night after night. A legend like Monk isn't going to spend a huge chunk of his career with a bad musician, that's certain. If the only others we're comparing him to are Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane...I mean come on!!!! You guys are brutal.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Anyone for the Sonny Rollins/Clifton Anderson parallel?

Mike

[Dan Gould]

Anyone for the Sonny Rollins/Clifton Anderson parallel?

Mike

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Absolutely not - unless you're going to tell me that Rouse was Monk's second cousin, twice removed, or some such b.s.

[Kalo]

The thing that works about Rouse with Monk for me is his tone and his clipped phrasing. But in terms of his actual lines, I think he's much more standard bebop than Monk.

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I think that's a pretty good assessment -- which already puts him leagues above Clifton Anderson.

And oh, yeah - make mine Dunlop. More than Blakey (although not "officially"), Max, Roy, etc.

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I'd have to say I'm a Dunlop man, too. Bouncier and more elastic than Blakey, for sure...

I wonder what Lacy thought of Rouse. Anyone know?

Check this out (halfway down into the article)

Lacy

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Thanks for answering my question, jg. Nice quotes from Lacy. In that light, we might look at the Monk/Rouse tandem as a sort of settled, middle-aged marriage: perhaps not the most exciting, but still plenty satisfying for both partners, for a variety of reasons. It's hard to knock fidelity.

[mikeweil]

This begins to remind me of the foolish debate about the Milt Jackson - John Lewis pairing in the MJQ ...... in the end, we're not a bit wiser, and it all remains a matter of taste and choice on the sides of both the muscicians and the fans.

[AllenLowe]

as I said, I did not want to start a war - but I do think that Lacy was kind of paying Rouse a left-handed compliment.

Now, in saying all this, I'm not denying that Rouse was a very good musician; but technical competence and creativity are often two very separate things. I'm not just saying that he wasn't Rollins or Coltrane, but that he was not a very intersting musician, to my way of hearing. Your own hearing may vary -

[JSngry]

And I will say that I agree with you, but not to the extent that it cancels out the sense of "appreciation" I've come to develop for what Rouse accomplished with Monk.

Like I said, when I started really getting into those tunes seriously, my opinion of him went from "Oh god, this cat's a drag" (I was like you - could not handle listening to the cat) to "hey, this cat had some shit going on!" What he lacked for in being able to put anything special on the "outside" of the music, he made up for (to what degree is a totally personal call) in showing an understanding of the "inside" of the music. No small feat that, and unless/until you've really tackled playing the Monk repertoire beyond a superficial level, perhaps not a feat that reveals iteself to any ready extent.

I also think that Rouse is heard to fuller, better advantage outside of (and in the years after) Monk, but that's another matter altogether.

[AllenLowe]

I can't argue with that - and must admit I don't know Rouse's non-Monk work well -

[Spontooneous]

I sympathize with anyone who finds Rouse frustrating. He relies on the same gestures again and again. One phrase-beginning in particular is REALLY overused. There's not a lot of nuance in tone or time or attack.

But here's what I like: The just-mentioned tone and attack. And the willingness to work and rework an idea until he's satisfied with the result. Call it focus.

One example of Rouse with Monk getting it all right: The "Well You Needn't" solo on the Columbia It Club set. Four beautifully connected and contrasted (yes) choruses, full of inner logic, exploratory spirit and good humor. And the last bridge is woodshed stuff.

Put me down as a big fan.

[JSngry]

And in fairness to Rouse, I think that most of his best work with Monk wasn't issued at the time. The various live Columbia dates like the It Club set spring to mind. I had already formed a pretty negative opinion of him by the time those things started coming out. The Columbia studio sides that were contemporaneously released seemed to feature him droning on, playing the same licks over and over (in particular, the Columbia Straight, No Chaser album, as origianlly released, is the one Monk quartet album that I still can't listen to without getting bored and or pissed off), whereas the live stuff released later show him in more open form. There are indeed gems to be found amongst the, uh.... non-gems.

Funny, though, he got off to such an exiting start. His work on 5 By Monk By 5 is really hip.

[7/4]

I guess I should check out more Rouse. So little time, so much music.