Thelonious Monk
With John Coltrane (1957)

review by: Jason Thornberry
Date: 7/31/01

Long before Empty-Vee; before everything that’s now hip this week was even born, when rock ‘n’ roll itself still had poo sodden diapers, Thelonius Monk (piano), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), a pair of drummers called Art Blakey and Shadow Wilson, Ray Copeland (trumpet), Coleman Hawkins (also on tenor sax) Gigi Grice (alto sax), and Wilbur Ware (bass) were playing together at the Five Spot Café in New York. It’s a shame that six months worth of live sets now can only account for a measly thirty-six minutes of music, and not a mammoth boxed set. C’est la vie!

Recorded between 1957-58 these six songs have that quality to them that makes you feel as though the entire band is set up in your house while it’s on.

No one had yet made Monk and ‘Trane the legends that they so deservedly are now. Instead you have this fantastic footnote to an era that was as different from today as humanly possible.