Thelonious Monk

LIVE IN ROTTERDAM 1967

When he took the stage at the Club Doelen in Rotterdam on 28 October 1967, Thelonious Monk had just turned 50. Fifteen years later he would disappear from the music scene, taking refuge for the last six years of his life in New York at Pannonica de Koenigswater, never to touch the piano again. Flanked by the two "classics" "Ruby, My Dear" and "Blue Monk", he leads the quartet of his three accomplices, Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales, Ben Riley and their guests, for more than an hour and 20 minutes. Larry Gales' bass pops out of a box at the end of "Hackensack", the brass gets carried away in the middle of "We See"; they answer each other by swirling in the dizzying "Oska". And in the middle of the concert, a solo moment on 'Don't Blame Me': everything appears contrasting, twisted, oblique, each note seeming to be surprised by the previous one. Monk first goes around the melody from behind before bringing it back, pure, to the front. Finally they close: "Blue Monk", all classical restraint.