monk and rouse

[alocispepraluger102]

i am not sure there is a more magnificant beautiful complimentary relationship in the wh..

ole musical literature.

tell me more.

[Teasing the Korean]

I tend to agree with you. I have read some less-than-positive things about Rouse's playing. Maybe those people heard different records than I did.

While there is not instrument/textural variety on the Monk Columbia albums, I think that those two really complement each other.

I need to spin some Monk.

[Gheorghe]

Sure! I agree you 100 %!

Charlie Rouse was the best musical partner for Monk as a saxophonist. With all due respect to Trane, Rollins, Griffin who did fantastic things with Monk, Charlie Rouse was the man. His sound and his phrasing would fit perfectly to Monk´s musical conception and style. Nobody knew Monk´s music better than Rouse, period.

It went so far that Rouse sounded like Monk´s music even if he played with other people or let´s say on his only BN album "Bossa Nova Baccanal". That sound´s like if Monk went "latin".

Griffin, who also loved Monk and had played a lot with him, once said it´s hard for most saxophone players to work with Monk, because of his way of comping. It´s apt to throw a horn player, so they were glad when at some point he laid out when they stretched out on their solos, which he would do anyway. But with Charlie Rouse, it was just "hands in gloves".

[alocispepraluger102]

last night, in listening to some of monk's live recordings from france and some earlier one's from the 1960s, the empathy between monk and charlie rouse is more than striking, and some of my most favorite music. to me it is very beautiful, even mindblowing. i even generally prefer it to the monk-coltrane collaborations.

i was also was reintroduced to the monk composition, locomotive, which i seem to have forgotten.

Edited October 14, 2009 by alocispepraluger102

[flat5]

Not everyone agrees. Some people can't listen to Rouse.

They don't like his growlly sound or intonation (often sharp) or his redundant use of some motifs or embellishment figures. etc.

I can enjoy him for awhile. Apparently he did what Monk wanted.

[paul secor]

There were other saxophonists who played with Monk and may have been more inventive, but Charlie Rouse captured Monk's sound better than anyone else.

edit - For me, Johnny Griffin's playing with Monk never captured the essence of Monk's music. Very fine player elsewhere, but when I listen it seems as if Monk is in one place and Griff is in another.

Edited October 14, 2009 by paul secor

[alocispepraluger102]

Not everyone agrees. Some people can't listen to Rouse.

They don't like his growlly sound or intonation (often sharp) or his redundant use of some motifs or embellishment figures. etc.

I can enjoy him for awhile. Apparently he did what Monk wanted.

thanks--

you very well described rouse playing, which i find to be a marvelous ccomplement to brother monk.

[paul secor]

Any way to combine the two threads?

[jazzbo]

I'm a big Rouse fan, with and without Thelonious.

Together they made wonderful music!

[jeffcrom]

Rouse probably seemed like an odd choice for Monk at the time he was first brought into the band, but he really grew into his role. By the 1960s he had developed the perfect blend of chordal soling with the kind of melody-based improvisation Monk's music requires. Very few saxophonists could have done it better.

Steve Lacy inhabited Monk's musical world so thoroughly that I would have thought he would be the ideal Monk saxophonist, but the 1960 live recordings of the Monk Quintet from Philadelphia are kind of disconcerting. Lacy is too Monkish - there needs to be some contrast. (That's why Miles Davis sounded so good in Bird's band and Coltrane sounded so good in Miles'.)

All that being said, my favorite saxophonist with Monk will always be Coltrane. Even though they were working in different directions to an extent, it was an amazing musical exchange - music at its highest plane.

[jazzbo]

According to the new biography, Monk was impressed by Rouse when he heard him as a teen in D.C. while Monk was there with Hawkins. He took down his name. . . .