Album Reviews

If you're saying Monk's creative juices had begun to dry up by the time he signed with Columbia Records and released this 1963 label debut album you'll get no argument from me. But Monk, all of 46 when this was recorded, had a secret weapon: his rock'n'roll band of the hard-blowing Charlie Rouse on tenor sax, John Ore on bass and Frankie Dunlop on drums. They rocked!

The group put the pedal to the metal for this set of Monk originals plus some reworked standards including two solo tracks—"Body and Soul" and "Just a Gigolo". "Bright Mississippi" is the only track Monk had not previously recorded.

This is an all-out slam attack as clarified as it is hard-hitting. The group had been together for some time before Monk and co. went to Europe for the first time in April of 1961 and played to deliriously happy jazz fans including stops at concert halls in Milan and Paris. Those were recorded and released by Riverside in a limited edition double LP set Two Hours with Thelonious (RS9460/9461) and it was, and is, two well-spent hours but this in-the-studio recording better captures the close up power of this quartet with Rouse and Ore center stage and Monk stage left and Dunlop stage right. The "stereo" is more about separation than group integration but no matter, it's a superb recording nonetheless.

IMPEX reissued this album in 2012 cut by Kevin Gray at AcousTech at 33 1/3 and it was a very good sounding reissue that in some ways bettered the original 'black 360 sound' label original but it was soft sounding overall. There was also a Teo Macero produced digital remastered version cut by Vlado Meller that inexplicably reverses the channels and is marred by too much reverb. This double 45 "One-Step" pressing absolutely smokes every other version and provides all of the percussive excitement preserved on tape. A "One-Step" absolutely worth the money. Includes 2 B&W Monk photos from the Sony Archives. Now, fellas, on to Criss-Cross please?