Plays Duke Ellington

Artist: Thelonious Monk
Label: Ojc
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 025218602426
EAN: 0025218602426
ASIN: B000000Y1B

Release Date: 1991-07-01

Related Categories:

Bebop General

| Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

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Listmania:

Thelonious: The Monk Runs Deep, His Best in Order (My Picks)
So I Spree
What's In My CD Player (Oct 2002)
My favorite Monk List
Oscar Pettiford on OJC
Introducing Pettiford
Quilty's Musical Essentials

Tracks:

It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
Sophisticated Lady
I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
Black And Tan Fantasy
Mood Indigo
I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart
Solitude
Caravan

Similar Items:

New Orleans Suite
Crescent
Lady in Satin
Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2

Customer Reviews:

Fiesta in Black and Tan.......2006-09-19

Monk's "Plays Duke Ellington" album is a well known beginning of a fruitfull attachment to Riverside label; the producer thought it would be wise to present his quirky star in a less strange setting, playing the music of another great artist; both pianist and composer.
Frankly, I agree with people who say this is not true and complete Thelonious experience but, although I love and respect true and complete Thelonious, this is still great jazz.
For, Ellington was a great composer and these performances are nice, modernist and moderately monkish readings of some of his greatest tunes.
Highly recomendable both to Ellington fans and to modern jazz fans, althoug not all of the Monk fans will be thrilled.

Jump right in! The Jazz is fine........2004-06-29

So you're hearing all the jazzers in the peripherals of your life raving on and on about these seemingly inaccessible figures (Miles, Trane, Monk).

So you want to dip a tentative toe into the vast Ocean of Jazz.

So start right here.

"Plays Ellington'' is a great way to get acquainted with Monk. Listen for a bit and you'll find that there's nothing scary or "difficult' about his music.

Quite simply, Monk is fun.

Trust me, friend.

Jump right in! The Jazz is fine.

Kaz 6.29.04

monk minus monk.......2004-04-07

There has probably never been a musician as uncompromising as Thelonious Monk. He did it his way to an extent that Frank Sinatra could never have dreamed of. However, after some personal problems and a stint with the less than supportive Prestige records, Monk's career was at a low ebb, so when Riverside producer Orrin Keepnews suggested that he do a couple albums of other people's tunes as a kind of icebreaker, Monk agreed.

Ellington was one of the most obvious of Monk's influences- ("Sounds like he's stealing some of my stuff" Ellington is supposed to have said on first hearing a Monk record)- and a set of Ellington' greatest hits would seem like a natural way to let Monk be Monk while playing a set of jazz standards.

Unfortunately, whether out of respect for the material, some degree of tentativeness with a new producer and record label, or from a conscious effort to smooth off some of Monk's more controversial characteristics, the playing on this first Riverside LP seems a little like Smooth Monk. You can tell it's Monk, but kind of generi-sized, as if to convince Erroll Garner fans that Thelonious was their friend, and really wouldn't hurt them. The result is a nice average kind of album: has its moments ("Solitude"), but a little dull in spots ("It Don't Mean A Thing...").

On the next Riverside LP, a collection of standards called "The Unique Thelonious Monk", the arrangements and playing are much more angular and Monk-like, and by the third LP, "Brilliant Corners" no holds are barred, no compromises made. The rest of the Monk Riverside catalog is Monk his way: "Monk's Music", "Thelonious Himself", "Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall", "5xMonkx5"- all examples of one of the most sharply etched, self-aware musical visions ever.

As phase one of a marketing strategy, "Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington" was fine, but as a Monk album it's just okay.

The Monk plays the Duke........2003-08-22

With this recording, Monk began his tenure at Riverside Records, which was very fruitful and lasted till around the early sixties when Columbia stole him away. The idea was that Monk was gaining popularity, but he was still a tough act to get used to for a lot of people because of the idiosyncratic compositions and piano style. So they suggested an album of someone else's material, to let those less familiar with Monk get used to his playing before confronting the genius of his writing. And who better than Duke to supply the material--Duke, whose playing, along with James P. Johnson and some of the other stride players, influenced Monk a great deal. The result is--surprise, surprise--an absolutely brilliant record. Ellington is reinvented, as is anyone lucky enough to be filtered through Monk's genius. The most wonderful thing is that there is no conflict of musical personalities, no struggle between the old and the new. There is more than enough room for both, and these recordings turn out to be at once purely Ellington and purely Monk. And Thelonious is helped in no small part by drummer Kenny Clarke and bassist Oscar Pettiford, two of the best players of their time. The highlights are every song.

stunning.......2002-07-02

Quite different versions of some classic Duke Ellington songs, quieter, but with a stunning effect. In My Solitude is nothing short of a miracle! Don't Mean A Thing is full of surprises, and as Don Cherry once said, Jazz is the sound of surprise.

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