Thelonious Monk in Scandinavia in 1966

Once again YouTube allowed me to view another upload of a DVD in the Jazz Icons series. This time my selection was Thelonious Monk Live in ’66, and it consisted of two half-hour videos made, respectively, in Oslo, Norway, and Denmark (probably in Copenhagen) on April 15 and 17, respectively. The Oslo video captured a performance to a sold-out auditorium on the campus of the University of Oslo, while the Danish video was a studio recording.

From a personal point of view, this tour took place a couple of years before I first walked into the Village Vanguard to listen to (and observe) Monk in performance. However, I have to say that these videos made for a significant improvement over actually “being there.” The primary reason is that, in both cities, there was always a camera that afforded generous views of Monk’s hands at the piano keyboard.

Monk’s keyboard skills were, to say the least, unique. They were often aggressive; and, frequently, one got the impression that Monk was planning his next move as each key or combination of keys registered with the ear. One came away feeling that there was more spontaneity than one usually encountered, as if Monk knew what his favorite riffs were but always wanted to seek out others. The result tends to feel more like restless struggle than an intimate engagement between pianist and the other performers, Charlie Rouse on tenor saxophone, Larry Gales on bass, and Ben Riley on drums.

The workings of Monk’s creative mind are probably best on display in his Denmark performance of Jimmy McHugh’s “Don’t Blame Me.” It is clear that the rest of the combo gave Monk all the space he needed, as if adding to the mix might break some sort of spell being incanted by the solo piano work. Nevertheless, the camera caught an amusing shot of Gales plucking an imaginary bass while Monk blazed his own trail through a tune that was over 30 years old when he played it.

Each of the performances involved only three tunes. Harry Warren’s “Lulu’s Back in Town” opened both sets. The rest of the Oslo program consisted of Monk originals, “Blue Monk” and “’Round Midnight.” In Denmark “Don’t Blame Me” followed “Lulu,” leaving “Epistrophy” as the only Monk original. That said, however, these videos present much more about Monk the performer than they do about Monk the composer. Indeed, the camera work in both settings is as attentive to the performance techniques of the rest of the combo as it is to Monk’s unique keyboard style.

Watching Monk at the Vanguard was a mixed experience. When he was not playing, he liked to stand away from his instrument, sometimes doing a little shuffle in response to solos from the rest of his group. Since this was a “first contact” experience, I was not sure what to make of it; and, of course, I never had the benefit of a “camera’s eye view” of the keyboard. Watching this video, I felt as if I was finally getting my head around why Monk’s music sounded the way it did.