In A Mellow Tone
Wednesday April 13th, 2022 with Bruce Walton
"there ain't no wrong notes on the piano"

Late in his life, when Thelonious Monk had stopped all musical activity, he heard an "expert" on a NYC radio station say, as part of a special feature on his music, that Monk made great music, despite "playing the wrong notes on the piano", a reference to the distinctively off-kilter aspects of his compositions. Monk called the station and said "tell that guy there ain't no wrong notes on the piano". Nor were there, when Thelonious Sphere Monk composed the 70 songs which are his legacy. Some of those tunes have become jazz standards, as musicians explore their distinctive, and sometimes very challenging, melodies, harmonies and rhythms. Others are much less well-known, and tonight we check out some of each type as played by the pianist Frank Kimbrough and his quartet, featuring multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson, from his impressive all-of-Monk box set. About half the tracks are done as a tenor sax quartet, five are quartets with Scott Robinson playing something other than tenor, and the balance are duos of various types and one solo piano version. In order to focus on "lesser" Monk compositions I have deliberately avoided "Round Midnight", "In Walked Bud", "Evidence", Epistrophy", etc.