Tribute to Monk at Smoke Jazz Club

Tribute to Monk
Smoke Jazz and Supper Club
New York, NY
October 25, 2024

Jazz demonstrated its resilience on Friday at Smoke. At 4.30 pm on that day, tenorist and bandleader Joe Lovano got the bad news that master drummer Al Foster was not going to make the gig that night.

Serendipity intervened. Bill Stewart was in town and available, and the shows proceeded, albeit with no rehearsal with the new drummer before the first, 7 pm set. ("But then we didn't really rehearse with Al either," Lovano cracked during a chat ahead of the night's last set. "Guys at this level can step in; they know their stuff.")

It helped that the repertoire was drawn entirely from the music of Thelonious Monk—a touchstone for modern jazz musicians—and that Stewart shares deep history with his bandmates. The Iowan has been part of a longtime trio with pianist Kevin Hays and bassist Doug Weiss, recording a duo project, American Ballad (Self Produced) with the former in 2022. The drummer and Lovano have played together on and off for more than 30 years, appearing on one another's albums and sharing membership in guitarist John Scofield''s stellar '90s quartet.

Still, sets that could have stumbled instead soared, buoyed by jazz's shared traditions and the professionalism of this instant quartet.

In the late set, Lovano was his usual singular self, with carefully thought solos that explored brilliant corners without ever straying too far from the pieces' harmonic and melodic strengths. His two solos in "Ruby, My Dear" were set highlights. The first, after several gorgeous choruses of the iconic melody, calmly climbed in and around it, staying in the mid-range, while the second accelerated the phrasing and ascended into the tenor's higher reaches without ever reaching jarring shrieks. He is a player with heart who can exudes a cool cerebrality.

For all the leader's authority—and his swaying, almost trancelike presence—Stewart was the accidental star, much like a Broadway understudy who steps in at the last moment and exceeds expectations. He excelled in telepathic support to the soloists. In "Criss Cross," for example, Stewart anticipated Lovano beginning, in mid-solo, to play the piece's head and began a drum pattern that echoed, and perfectly synced with, the theme's rhythmic contours.

It is always fascinating to hear pianists tackle Monk's unique oeuvre, especially if, like Hays, their playing hardly leans to Monkian eccentricity. At Smoke, Hays navigated the knotty material with an elegance that eschewed the dissonance and lurching pauses of Monk's style. Hays's playing is deeply melodic—as was Monk's, for all its devious disruptions—and he dug deep to mine the melodicism of so many of the pieces played at Smoke. Weiss was consistently sure and supportive.

The artistic shadow of Monk—whose 107th birthday would have been on October 10—is hardly diminishing with time. The Smoke engagement comes a year after Lovano assembled much the same band, including Foster, at the Upper West Side club.

In that pre-show chat, Lovano reflected on his deep love for the music of the North Carolinian, and rued that he never got a chance to see Monk play before the pianist all but disappeared from the stage in the mid-1970s, before his death in 1982. Lovano and company more than did justice to Monk's legacy during this return visit.