Thelonious Monk Trio

Thelonious Monk Trio is an album by American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. The album features his earliest recordings for Prestige Records, performing as a soloist with a rhythm section of bassist Gary Mapp (originally credited as "Gerry Mapp"), either Art Blakey or Max Roach on drums, and one track with Percy Heath replacing Mapp. It also contains the earliest recorded versions of the jazz standards "Blue Monk" and "Bemsha Swing". Secondary sources have placed the album's release year to either 1954 or 1956. It has been re-released numerous times, occasionally under the title Monk's Moods and with different track orders. Its track listing expands on the 10" LP issue Thelonious (1953), augmented with two tracks from his fourth 10" LP, Thelonious Monk Plays (with Percy Heath and Art Blakey), released in 1954. Critical reception Thelonious Monk Trio received critical acclaim during the 2000s. Reviewing in All Music Guide to Jazz (2002), Scott Yanow said the album features "brilliant performances" in spite of Monk "suffering from lack of work and a complete lack of recognition from the public" at the time of the recordings. Fellow AllMusic contributor Ronnie D. Lankford Jr. called its music "intimate, intense, and inspired ... 35 minutes of professional musicians practicing their craft", and wrote that, although they were "pieced together from three different sessions," the recordings' "small settings ... allow the necessary space for Monk's explorations, which conjure up images of a mathematician working out geometric patterns on the keyboard." BBC Music 's Charles de Ledesma remarked that "the various personnel make little difference to the overall effect – Monk throughout offers a sumptuous flow of melody, punctuation, nuance and charm." Reviewing the album's 2007 Rudy Van Gelder remaster, Chris May from All About Jazz hailed Thelonious Monk Trio as "immortal, stratospheric music" and "amongst the most eternal" of Monk's releases. "At this period like no other", May said, "Monk's rhythmic attack packed the power of an express train." Sputnikmusic's Alex Robertson said that "even when Monk gets nutty, as on the brutally virtuosic 'Trinkle, Tinkle,' the album's appeal lies not in his 'sabotage' of popular music but his ability to turn it into something invigoratingly weird, two approaches often conflated when looking back on the work of an inventive musician." In MSN Music , Christgau said the record offers "the not so common chance to hear Monk as a solely featured soloist with a rhythm section", with drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach performing like "co-stars".