Gerry Mulligan/Thelonious Monk: Mulligan Meets Monk [CONCORD JAZZ]

Why you'll love it

This Original Jazz Classics reissue carries the stereo album on Riverside's white and blue reel-to-reel labels. It pairs Mulligan's baritone with Monk's piano on Monk tunes including "'Round Midnight" and "Straight, No Chaser."

This edition

• Original Jazz Classics series
• Riverside reel-to-reel labels
• Stereo

About the album

On paper it looks like a mismatch: the smooth, melodic king of West Coast cool on baritone sax and the angular high priest of bebop piano. Producer Orrin Keepnews put them in Reeves Sound Studios in New York on August 12 and 13, 1957, with Wilbur Ware on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums, and the odd couple turned out to be a natural pairing.

Mulligan clearly did his homework. "'Round Midnight" is slow and tender, the big horn wrapping itself around Monk's spiky chords, while "Rhythm-A-Ning" and "I Mean You" find him navigating Monk's twists with a grin. "Straight, No Chaser" swings hard, Mulligan's own "Decidedly" gives Monk something new to chew on, and the standard "Sweet And Lovely" gets a lovely, loping treatment. Ware and Wilson were Monk's working rhythm section at the time, which keeps everything locked in his peculiar groove.

Keepnews also wrote the original liner notes. It's a sign of a good session when both players leave sounding a little bit like each other.

Also at Kops: more Thelonious Monk on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Riverside / Original Jazz Classics (cat# OJC-301), a reissue of the 1957 album.