{"id":6522,"date":"2017-06-14T14:55:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T14:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=6522"},"modified":"2018-04-25T16:02:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T16:02:14","slug":"monk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/14\/monk\/","title":{"rendered":"Monk Kicks Off His Own Centenary: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Arnaud Boubet Private Collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Any day that brings a music recorded by Thelonious Monk that I haven’t yet heard is a glorious day, indeed.<\/p>\n

That’s how I felt when I received\u00a0\u201cThelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960\u201d<\/strong> (Sam Records\/Saga), Monk’s\u00a0soundtrack recordings for Roger Vadim’s film, released for the first time.<\/p>\n

And what better way to kick off what I hope is a wide-ranging celebration of the late, great pianist and composer.<\/p>\n

Here’s how I began my Wall Street Journal review<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Thelonious Monk\u2019s Little-Known \u2018Liaisons\u2019<\/strong><\/em>
\n By Larry Blumenfeld<\/em>
\n Pianist Thelonious Monk was born in Rocky Mount, N.C., on Oct. 10, 1917. The centenary of this moment will likely inspire a wave of celebratory concerts and recordings. Since Monk\u2019s death, in 1982, the influence of his compact body of compositions has grown with each passing decade; once considered radical, they are now as elemental to modern jazz as are Bach\u2019s to classical music. The characteristics of his piano playing\u2014jarring rhythmic displacements, clotted chords, flat-fingered runs and spiky dissonances\u2014still sound distinct even as they shape our ideas of contemporary music\u2019s possibilities.<\/em>
\n The first commemoration of Monk\u2019s centenary comes early, a posthumous gift from the master himself. \u201cThelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960\u201d (Sam Records\/Saga), available as a deluxe double-CD or LP set, contains Monk\u2019s studio recordings for the soundtrack of Roger Vadim\u2019s French film of the same name. This music has never been available outside the context of the film. The master tapes of Monk\u2019s soundtrack were discovered in 2014, in the archives of Marcel Romano, the French promoter who introduced Vadim to Monk\u2019s music. Romano, who had brought Miles Davis to director Louis Malle to score \u201cAscenseur pour l\u2019\u00e9chafaud,\u201d also managed French tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen, who here joined Monk\u2019s quartet for several takes.<\/em>
\n Vadim\u2019s adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos\u2019s 18th-century novel embraced a story of bourgeois infidelity and seduction as transposed to 20th-century France, with a jazz soundtrack. (Cocktail-party scenes featured Duke Jordan\u2019s tunes played by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, later released on the Fontana label.) Though commercially successful in France, the film is memorable now mostly for its nudity and risqu\u00e9 tone. Monk\u2019s music\u2014recorded in Manhattan, in the summer of 1959\u2014is, however, timeless musical expression that documents a significant moment.<\/em>
\n The list of classics recorded in 1959\u2014as transformative a year as jazz has known\u2014includes Miles Davis\u2019s \u201cKind of Blue,\u201d John Coltrane\u2019s \u201cGiant Steps\u201d and Ornette Coleman\u2019s \u201cThe Shape of Jazz to Come.\u201d It was also a heady time in Monk\u2019s career. Months earlier, he had played a landmark large-ensemble concert at Town Hall. His working quartet had just recorded a fine album with cornetist Thad Jones and, shortly before this soundtrack session, had played the Newport Jazz Festival to rave reviews. This quartet, excellent though short-lived, included bassist Sam Jones, drummer Art Taylor and tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, who had just begun a decade-long association with Monk.<\/em>
\n Yet as Monk\u2019s biographer Robin D.G. Kelley observes in an insightful liner note, Vadim had \u201capproached Monk at the absolute worst time.\u201d A dizzying professional schedule along with some setbacks, especially the loss of his cabaret card following an unjust arrest, had left Monk in the grip of severe emotional instability. He was, as Mr. Kelley writes, \u201covercommitted, tired, and ill.\u201d Thus, Monk wrote no new compositions or arrangements; these tracks seem more the stuff of a jazz-club performance or record date than a movie score.<\/em>
\n Still, Mr. Kelley writes, \u201cMonk chose the repertoire based on his understanding of the story, and played around with the tempos in order to capture the character\u2019s emotional state or circumstance.\u201d Indeed, the always-inventive Monk here emphasizes the emotional content of his music. A version of \u201cCrepuscule With Nellie,\u201d used for opening credits, contains noticeably pregnant pauses. Four versions of \u201cPannonica,\u201d two as solo piano, reveal subtly shifting shades of feeling. For a scene in which the innocent Marianne and her seducer, Valmont, meet in a church, Monk, perhaps as irony, played a straightforward version of the Rev. Charles A. Tindley\u2019s hymn \u201cBy and By (We\u2019ll Understand It Better By and By),\u201d which he likely learned as a teenager while playing for a traveling Pentecostal preacher.<\/em>
\n Nothing sounds revolutionary in these tracks, yet they reveal Monk during a dynamic year, in the midst of turmoil, seeming relaxed, playful and at the top of his game. His version of \u201cWell, You Needn\u2019t\u201d bristles with the particular energy afforded by this brief rhythm-section alliance with Jones and Taylor. \u201cRhythm-a-Ning\u201d is notable for Monk\u2019s differing interplay with each saxophonist. An improvised blues, originally untitled, listed here as \u201cSix in One,\u201d sounds like a sketch of what Monk recorded three months later as \u201cRound Lights.\u201d Here also is the only known studio recording of Monk\u2019s \u201cLight Blue\u201d (two versions, in fact). On the second, a 14-minute version credited as \u201cLight Blue (Making Of),\u201d Monk implores Taylor, against his protestations, to \u201ckeep on doing what you\u2019re doing\u201d\u2014to extend a three-beat pattern that forms a countermelody. Whether Monk was thinking about advancing Vadim\u2019s cinematic tale or simply telling his own story is anyone\u2019s guess.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any day that brings a music recorded by Thelonious Monk that I haven’t yet heard is a glorious day, indeed. That’s how I felt when I received\u00a0\u201cThelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960\u201d (Sam Records\/Saga), Monk’s\u00a0soundtrack recordings for Roger Vadim’s film, released for the first time. And what better way to kick off what I hope … <\/p>\n

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