Misterioso (Thelonious Monk album)

Untitled

Misterioso is a live album by American jazz ensemble the Thelonious Monk Quartet, released in 1959 by Riverside Records. Pianist and composer Thelonious Monk recorded the album on August 7, 1958, at the Five Spot Café in New York City with his new quartet, which featured drummer Roy Haynes, bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin.

The album and its title track were titled as a reference to Monk's reputation at the time as an enigmatic, challenging musician. The album's cover art appropriates Giorgio de Chirico's 1915 painting The Seer. According to producer Orrin Keepnews, Monk played piano more vividly than on his studio recordings in response to the venue's enthusiastic crowd. Misterioso features four of his earlier compositions, which Monk reworked live.

In contemporary reviews of the album, music critics complimented Monk's performance, but were ambivalent towards Griffin, whose playing they felt was out of place with the quartet. Misterioso was remastered and reissued in 1989 and 2012 by Original Jazz Classics. Since its initial reception, the album has received retrospective acclaim from critics, who viewed Griffin's playing as a highlight.

Background

After twenty years of career struggles and obscurity, Thelonious Monk had become a jazz star with a residency at the Five Spot Café in New York City's East Village. In his first stable job in years, he helped transform the small bar into one of the city's most popular venues, as it attracted bohemians, hipsters, and devout fans of Monk's music. Monk's employment there was a result of an appeal by his manager Harry Colomby to the State Liquor Authority (SLA) to restore Monk's cabaret card; he was stripped of the card in 1951 when he refused to betray friend and pianist Bud Powell to the police and was convicted of narcotics possession as a consequence. Although the loss limited him as a performer, Monk recorded several albums of original music and received much attention from the press, which led Colomby to argue to the SLA that he was "a drug-free, law-abiding citizen, whose productivity and growing popularity as a recording artist demonstrates his standing as a responsible working musician." In May 1957, the SLA said Monk needed to get a club owner to hire him first, so Colomby considered the Five Spot Café: "I wanted to find a place that was small. I once drove past this place in the Village and there was a bar and I heard music ... A place where poets hung out." Joe Termini, who co-owned the venue with his brother Iggy, testified at Monk's police hearing, which resulted in his card being reinstated.

Beginning in July, Monk performed at the venue for six months, playing with a quartet that featured saxophonist John Coltrane, bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and drummer Shadow Wilson. However, by the time his employment there ended in December, Monk had lost Wilson to poor health, while Coltrane left because Miles Davis wanted him to return to his own group. After returning to New York City's club scene with a new quartet, Monk received an eight-week offer from Joe and Iggy Termini to play the Five Spot Café beginning on June 12, 1958. He played most nights during the weekend to capacity crowds, and led an ensemble that featured Abdul-Malik, drummer Roy Haynes, and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Griffin had performed with Monk before, but was unfamiliar with all of his repertoire and, like Coltrane, found it difficult to solo over Monk's comping during their first few weeks at the venue: "Any deviation, one note off, and you sound like you're playing another tune, and you're not paying attention to what's going on. And it's so evident ... there's no space." During their performances, Monk often left the stage for a drink at the bar or danced around, which gave Griffin an opportunity to play with more space. Ultimately, however, the quartet developed enough of a rapport and grasp of the set list.

Recording and production

The album's title drew on Monk's reputation as an enigmatic, challenging musician. (photographed by William P. Gottlieb at Minton's Playhouse, NYC, c. September 1947)

Record producer Orrin Keepnews attempted to record the quartet live at the Five Spot Café on two different occasions in 1958. His first recording of the quartet was of two sets in their July 9 show. Monk was disappointed with the recording and did not allow his label Riverside Records to release it, although it was ultimately released posthumously. Keepnews returned to the venue on August 7, when Monk performed an evening show in the club's overcrowded room set up with recording equipment. It yielded both Misterioso and the 1958 album Thelonious in Action, which was released first. The show was believed to be the first successful live recording of Monk's music, until his 1957 concert recording with Coltrane at Carnegie Hall was discovered and released in 2005.

According to Keepnews, who produced Misterioso, the album and its title track were titled as a mild play on the words "mist" and "mystery" to evoke the perception of Monk's music as enigmatic and challenging at the time. Jazz critic Neil Tesser said that the word, which is Latin for "in a mysterious manner", was "used most often as a musical direction in classical music scores. But by the time Monk's quartet recorded this music [in 1958] 'Misterioso' had largely come to identify Monk himself."

To capitalize on Monk's popularity with intellectual and bohemian fans from venues such as the Five Spot Café, Riverside released Misterioso and reissues of his older albums with designs referencing 20th century works of art. The album's cover art is a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico's 1915 painting The Seer, which was originally painted as a tribute to French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Monk biographer Robin Kelley argued that, because Rimbaud had "called on the artist to be a seer in order to plumb the depths of the unconscious in the quest for clairvoyance", the painting was the best choice as the album's cover: "The one-eyed figure represented the visionary; the architectural forms and the placement of the chalkboard evoked the unity of art and science—a perfect symbol for an artist whose music has been called 'mathematical.'" According to musicologist Robert G. O'Meally, the cover reflects "the mysterious violations of convention of perspective, the silences, and oddly attractive angles (the overall futuristic quality) in Monk's music."

Composition

The songs played on Misterioso were arranged by Monk, who reworked four of his earlier compositions. Keepnews remarked on Monk's artistry in the album's liner notes: "[I]t should be axiomatic that Monk is a constantly self-renewing composer-arranger-musician, that each new recording of an 'old' number, particularly with different personnel, represents a fresh view of it—almost a new composition." According to Keepnews, Monk played piano more vividly and less introspectively than on his studio recordings in response to the enthusiastic crowds he drew nightly to the Five Spot Café.

On "Nutty", Griffin incorporated lines from "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" and exhibited a frenetic swing that was complemented by counterplay from Haynes and Monk. "Blues Five Spot", one of Monk's newer compositions at the time, is a twelve-bar blues homage to the Five Spot Café that featured solos from each member of the quartet. Griffin and Monk transfigured chord structures and melodies throughout the performance. Griffin's solo vamp maintained the song's rhythm while quoting lines from other pieces, including the theme song for the animated Popeye theatrical shorts; he played "The Sailor's Hornpipe" at the end of "Blues Five Spot".

The quartet began "In Walked Bud" with an eight-bar piano intro and thirty-two-bar form by the quartet. Griffin began his solo a minute into the song with saxophone wails. In the third minute, Monk did not play, while Griffin played fast phrases at the top of his register with intermittently slower R&B and free jazz elements. Monk shouted approvingly throughout Griffin's solo before he resumed piano and played a two-minute theme. Monk performed a brief, unaccompanied version of the standard "Just a Gigolo", which was the only song on the album not composed by Monk. It is played as a single chorus repeated at length.

The title track, first recorded in 1948, is one of Monk's most influential recordings and is based on a series of minor second clusters. His performance of the song at the Five Spot Café showcased his idiosyncratic playing of one blue note next to another. Monk superimposed musical ideas that deviated from the song's original tonal center, adding a C blue note to the D-flat blue note. Haynes' subdued drumming backed Griffin's aggressive bop playing and extended solo on "Misterioso".

Release and reception

Critics were divided in their assessment of Johnny Griffin's playing on the album.

Misterioso was released in 1959 by Riverside. It was Monk's eighth album for the label. In a contemporary review for Hi Fi Review, critic Nat Hentoff said that the album is "not one of his best" and observed "too little space for Monk's soloing and somewhat too much" for Griffin, whose impressive saxophone cry and timing diminish his solos. Hentoff also felt that Haynes and Abdul-Malik do not support Monk as creatively as Wilbur Ware and Art Blakey had on his previous Riverside albums, where he said Monk was in more compelling form. In 1959, Monk was voted the pianist of the year in an annual poll of international jazz critics from Down Beat magazine, who said he can be heard "at his challenging, consistently creative best" on Misterioso. Upon the album's 1964 release in the United Kingdom, Gramophone magazine's Charles Fox gave Misterioso a positive review and found its music "well up to standard", with exceptional playing by Monk and the rhythm section, particularly Haynes, who shows "once again what a great drummer he was then – and, indeed, still is today." However, Fox felt that Griffin did not fit in with the quartet and overshadowed Monk's compositions, finding his solos diffuse and characterized by trivial quotations rather than any "attempt at development".

In the All Music Guide to Jazz (2002), Lindsay Planer gave Misterioso five out of five stars and said that the quartet "continually reinvent" their strong, cohesive sound with "overwhelming and instinctual capacities" throughout the album. Planer particularly praised Griffin, whom he said "consistently liberates the performances." AllMusic's Scott Yanow also gave it five stars and stated that Misterioso is slightly better than Thelonious in Action because of Griffin's "memorable improvising on a heated version" of "In Walked Bud". In his 2009 biography Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, Kelley wrote that because Griffin had mastered Monk's songs at that point, his solos on Misterioso and Thelonious in Action were excursive and spirited. Robert Christgau said that, along with Brilliant Corners (1957), Misterioso represents Monk's artistic peak. Christgau cited it as his favorite album of all time and, in a 2009 article for The Barnes & Noble Review, wrote that Griffin's tenor solo on "In Walked Bud" remains his "favorite five minutes of recorded music."

Reissues

In 1989, Misterioso was digitally remastered on CD by mastering engineer Joe Tarantino, who used 20-bit K2 Super Coding System technology at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California. On May 15, 2012, Concord Music Group reissued the album as part of their Original Jazz Classics Remasters series, along with Jazz at Massey Hall (1953) and Bill Evans' 1962 album Moon Beams. The reissue featured 24-bit remastering by Tarantino and three bonus tracks, including a medley of "Bye-Ya" and "Epistrophy" performed with drummer Art Blakey. Concord vice president Nick Phillips, who produced the reissue series, said that Misterioso is "an all-time classic live Thelonious Monk record" and "an indelible snapshot of Monk live in the late '50s."

Track listing

All songs were composed by Thelonious Monk, except where noted.

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Nutty"	5:22
2.	"Blues Five Spot"	8:11
3.	"Let's Cool One"	9:16

Side two

No.	Title	Length
4.	"In Walked Bud"	11:20
5.	"Just a Gigolo" (composed by Irving Caesar and Leonello Casucci)	2:07
6.	"Misterioso"	10:52

1989 bonus tracks

No.	Title	Length
7.	"'Round Midnight"	6:15
8.	"Evidence"	10:14

2012 bonus track

No.	Title	Length
9.	"Bye-Ya / Epistrophy (Theme)"	11:54

Personnel

1959 LP

• Ahmed Abdul-Malik – bass
• Paul Bacon – cover design
• Giorgio de Chirico – cover painting
• Ray Fowler – engineer
• Johnny Griffin – tenor saxophone
• Roy Haynes – drums
• Orrin Keepnews – liner notes, producer
• Thelonious Monk – piano

2012 reissue

• Abbey Anna – project assistant
• Art Blakey – drums (track 9)
• Chris Clough – project assistant
• Andrew Pham – design
• Nick Phillips – reissue producer
• Joe Tarantino – digital remastering (1989)
• Neil Tesser – liner notes
• Michelle Tremblay – project assistant

Release history

Region	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
United States	1959	Riverside Records	stereo LP	RLP 1133
			mono LP	RLP 12–279
United Kingdom	1964			RLP 279
United States	April 7, 1989	Original Jazz Classics	CD	OJCCD-206-25
	May 15, 2012	Original Jazz Classics, Concord Music Group	CD reissue	OJC-33725-02

Bibliography

• Anon. (1959). "Thelonious Monk". Down Beat. 26 (16). Chicago.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Anon. (1995). Original Jazz Classics Collector's Guide. San Francisco: Fantasy, Inc. ISBN 0963742132.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Anon. (2012). "Original Jazz Classics Add Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk and the Quartet Titles". All About Jazz. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Anon. (n.d.(a)). "Thelonious Monk / Thelonious Quartet Monk – Misterioso CD Album". CD Universe. Muze. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Anon. (n.d.(b)). "Misterioso OJCCD 206 2 : Thelonious Monk Quartet". Concord Music Group. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Anon. (n.d.(c)). "Misterioso (Original Jazz Classics Remasters)". Concord Music Group. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
• Christgau, Robert (2005). "Noise on Music Central". The Village Voice. No. February 22. New York. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Christgau, Robert (2009). "Not So Misterioso". The Barnes & Noble Review. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Fox, Charles (1964). "Jazz and Swing". Gramophone. 42 (August). London.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Giddins, Gary (1976). "Two Labels Pull Out the Old Bottles". The Village Voice. No. September 20. New York.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Hentoff, Nat (1959). "Thelonious Monk Quartet – Misterioso". Hi Fi Review. 2 (May).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Keepnews, Orrin (1959). Misterioso (LP liner notes). New York: Riverside Records. {{cite AV media notes}}: Unknown parameter |artist= ignored (|others= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |publisherid= ignored (help)
• Kelley, Robin (2009). Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 1439190496. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kurtz, Alan (2008). "Thelonious Monk: Misterioso (1958)". Jazz.com. Archived from the original on April 12, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• O'Meally, Robert G. (1997). Bowles, Juliette (ed.). "The International Review of African American Art". 14 (1). Hampton University Museum. {{cite journal}}: |chapter= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Planer, Lindsay (2002). "Thelonious Monk: Misterioso". In Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris; Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (eds.). All Music Guide to Jazz: The Definitive Guide to Jazz Music (4th ed.). Backbeat Books. ISBN 087930717X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Schuller, Gunther (1958). "Thelonious Monk". The Jazz Review (November). New York.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Siegel, Robert (2005). "Unearthing Unknown Monk, Coltrane Recording". NPR. Retrieved March 10, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Tesser, Neil (2012). Misterioso (CD reissue liner notes). Original Jazz Classics. {{cite AV media notes}}: Unknown parameter |artist= ignored (|others= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |publisherid= ignored (help)
• Yanow, Scott; et al. (2001). Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris; Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (eds.). All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music (4th ed.). Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0879306270. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

External links

• Misterioso at Discogs (list of releases)