Gregory Lewis Rethinks Monk on Organ

Organist Gregory Lewis on the cover of his Organ Monk Going Home album

A little over a month ago, Sunnyside Records released Organ Monk Going Home, an album of compositions by Thelonious Monk performed by an organ trio. Organist Gregory Lewis is the leader, joined by Kevin McNeal on guitar and Nasheet Waits on drums. The best source for this album is the Bandcamp Web page, which enables both physical and digital purchases and includes a highly informative essay. The album consists of eight tracks, the first seven of which are by Monk with a Lewis original, “Jaclyn’s Eyes,” as the conclusion.

The essay makes it clear that playing any Monk composition on organ would require serious rethinking. So much of what he did at his piano keyboard was uniquely eccentric and dependent on the percussive qualities of how individual keys would be struck. Lewis had to develop his own original set of approaches, which he shared with McNeal’s exploration of appropriate guitar techniques.

I suspect that Lewis and McNeal also realized that the entire Monk canon would have to be seriously filtered, since not all of his compositions would accommodate any useful approach to that rethinking process. As a result, several of the tracks are based on less familiar Monk compositions. Thus, the album begins with “Who Knows,” which was one of Monk’s Blue Note tracks, recorded on October 21, 1947. Then there are the two tunes that were first recorded on October 15, 1955 in a session led by saxophonist Gigi Gryce, “Gallop’s Gallop” and “Brake’s Sake.” The more familiar offerings on the album are “Evidence,” “San Francisco Holiday,” and “Brilliant Corners.”

Personally, I enjoyed this opportunity to listen to Monk through what we might call “a fresh set of auditory glasses.” Both Lewis and McNeal managed to find just the right “sweet spots,” where the “letter” of Monk’s compositions would cohabit with the “spirit” of organ and guitar techniques. One might call this an album of “new dimensions;” and I suspect that it will take a fair amount of listening to appreciate the full extent of those dimensions.

Now, is there a harpsichordist out there willing to take a similar approach to rethinking the Monk canon?