Thelonious Monk: Bremen 1965

The first official release of the Bremen concert, carefully remastered from the original tapes, is more than just an archival curiosity; it is a revelation. Recorded on an evening characterized by generous tempos and a relaxed exchange, Bremen 1965 reaffirms Thelonious Monk and his experienced quartet as they pay their most fundamental tributes: the uneven poetry of his time, the crystalline bite of Charlie Rouse's tenor saxophone, the steady ballast of Larry Gales's bass, and Ben Riley's propulsive subtleties on the drum kit. Sunnyside Records' package, available digitally, as a double CD and vinyl LP set, allows listeners to immerse themselves in these performances as the band did that night.

Historically, this concert fits within Monk's European Tours of the mid-1960s, a period when his quartet had achieved both technical mastery and telepathic connection. Audiences abroad, particularly in Germany, France, and Scandinavia, received Monk with a seriousness that sometimes eluded him in North America. The Bremen performance captures that receptive atmosphere.

"Criss Cross" opens the set with a confidence that is at once casual and carved. Monk's prickly chordal punctures outline the tune's odd angles as Rouse responds with linear lines as if straightening Monk's oblique phrases into a tenor narrative. The solos are long, exploratory, but not indulgent. Gales anchors with patient intonation, and Riley keeps the rhythmic horizon moving. Monk approaches "Sweet and Lovely" with the slow deliberation of an architect reexamining familiar ground. He lingers on the melody's intervals, breaking its genteel romanticism into blocks of tone that expose its harmonic bones. Rouse, ever the lyrical partner, restores tenderness to the line, his warm phrasing balancing Monk's abstraction.

For pure Monk, the pianist takes a solo turn on "Don't Blame Me" as he transforms the standard's sentimental plea into a meditation on voicing and timing. His phrasing, hesitant yet deeply assured, transforms the number into a conversation with silence itself, yielding a devotional result. The Monk and Kenny Clarke composition "Epistrophy" is developed with a blustering flair as the quartet embraces the number's angularity as a communal game. The head is stated with principal clarity. The improvisations are episodic, often returning to rhythmically furtive motifs that Monk plants like beacons. Rouse and Monk duel lightly, not so much as combatants but as old friends trading aphorisms.

"Just You Just Me" takes on a brighter hue, brisk, playful and imbued with that asymmetrical swing that only Monk could manage. The familiar head becomes an exercise in displacement with Monk sliding in and out of the beat, nudging the melody off-center before snapping it back into focus. Rouse dances alongside him, his phrasing delightfully elastic. The rhythm section, attuned to the game, keeps the tune buoyant and conversational while delivering solo excursions perfectly in keeping with the composition's aesthetic.

The remaining Monk composition is "Rhythm-a-ning," which proceeds as a study in swing that feels both loose and inexorably forward. Monk plays with a sly sense of timing, fragmenting the theme, allowing the syncopations to breathe and punctuating his right-hand flurries with jabbing left-hand chords that land like knowing asides. Rouse, in turn, delivers fluid solos, full of warmth, humor and rhythmic daring. Gales and Riley are particularly alive here, providing rhythmic threads that bind the ensemble, indicating that this is a band entirely at ease in its shared language. The album confirms once again that Monk's singular world, askew, unerring, and full of grace, remains central to modern jazz's sense of history and possibility.