clarkspicks.com

During the 1950s and 60s, with Monk, Parker, Gillespie and Coltrane, jazz entered into a sphere that was sometimes difficult for audiences to understand. Like the classical, or as they referred to themselves “serious” composers of the same period dissonance and odd rhythms were everywhere. The difference being that, of course, the jazz musicians were improvising this stuff. I found this quote on a Thelonious Monk website: “You know, anybody can play a composition and use far-out chords and make it sound wrong. It’s making it sound right that’s not easy.”

Typically a piece of jazz from this period will have a composed “head” in beginning, a set piece, which will establish an identifiable key and chord progression, which the music will, mostly, follow. The piece can be identified by it’s head. If a recording is played, beginning somewhere after the head, it may not be evident what the band is playing at all. - Not to me anyway. The head is often repeated at the end.

I have chosen a performance of the Thelonious Monk Quartet filmed in Paris in 1969 Monk is accompanied by Charlie Rouse on tenor saxophone, Nate Hygelund on bass and Paris Wright on drums. The tune is Straight No Chaser. At one time I had an LP of solo piano by Monk of which this was the title tune. Perhaps because of this, Straight No Chaser seems more accessible to me than some of his other works. The “head” is easily recognizable and the improvised section more or less follows a I IV V blues like structure.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 7:29 am and is filed under blues, jazz, music, piano. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.