I found this slightly battered copy of this French 7" EP at Rockaway Records this evening. These are four songs that were selected from his 1952 recording with the great drummer Max Roach and bassist Gary Mapp. This is 7" of magic. Offhand, I'm having dirty sexual thoughts tying this, but alas, I'm talking about the aural pleasure that comes with the name Thelonious Monk.
There are four songs on this EP, and they are "Bemsha Swing," Reflections" and then go to side two, for "Trinkle Tinkle" and classic beautiful "These Foolish Things" written by Strackey and Link. Monk wrote the other three and they are brilliant. There are three great pianists that I'm aware of, one is Glenn Gould, the other is Ron Mael from Sparks, and then there is Monk. This is an artist who sees music as a piece of sculpture, and what he does is gently trace the melody as if it was on thin rice paper. I never heard another pianist who had this approach to melody and treating it like a beautiful lover.
I'm imaging that this EP was once owned by someone like Juliette Gréco, who played it while drinking wine in a juice glass and looking outside her window and watching the leaves fall from trees. I imagine a lot of things, but I always have a soundtrack to my fantasies. Here's one of many.
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