Gerry Mulligan & Thelonious Monk - Gerry Mulligan

MULLIGAN, GERRY

"The minutes of this meeting are very interesting indeed.They begin with a lyrical "'Round Midnight", and continuethrough Monk's brittle "I Mean You". In between, thereare stretches of good to excellent Mulligan, brilliantWare, and good to excellent Monk." (Dom Cerulli). Thelonious Monk was a creator in the true sense of the word. The current LP includes oneof his rare albums that could fit within the standard formula of "jazz star 1 meets jazz star2". The pianist seldom shared the bill with other stars (which could compromise his ownmusical individuality) or accepted playing second fiddle to anyone. Two rare exceptionsinclude his two 1950 sides backing singer Frankie Passions ("Especially to You" and"Nobody Knows"), and his June 6, 1950 studio session backing Charlie Parker and DizzyGillespie. (Thelonious wasn't working a lot during that period and Bird made a point ofgetting him on the date.) But Monk is the leader on the vast majority of his recordings,and in a way he was also the leading voice on this meeting with Gerry Mulligan. Mostof the tunes played here are compositions by Monk, with the exception of the standard"Sweet and Lovely" - a favorite of Monk's, who recorded it dozens of times - and CharlieShavers' "Undecided", which could well have been Gerry's only call for the evening.Although it remains clearly recognizable, the latter tune was slightly modified here, retitled"Decidedly", and attributed to Mulligan himself. No other recording of "Undecided" byMonk is known to exist. Mulligan would record this title again with Stan Getz in 1966(also under the title "Decidedly" for the album Something Borrowed, Something Blue).As the original producer Orrin Keepnews pointed out, "'Round Midnight" was a Mulliganrequest, as he wanted to record the song with its composer. It is clearly one of the besttracks of the whole album. However, the fact that no new compositions by Monk wererecorded on this date seems to indicate that Monk always preferred to make his ownalbums and didn't dedicate too much time to such experiments as Mulligan Meets Monk,which he may have regarded as a "commercial" venture.

Price: $30.98