Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

Newsweek praised it as the “musical equivalent of the discovery of Mount Everest” (Sept 26, 2005). But this jazz jewel had been passing its time in an unmarked box, in the Library of Congress. Recorded in 1957, it sat untouched until a chap, Larry Applebaum, recording lab supervisor, found it.

“Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall” became the best selling music recording on Amazon.com soon after its release. Anyone present at Carnegie Hall could have told you that Monk and Coltrane had plotted to blow minds and write the

performance into the history books with just the quasi-baroque piano's arpeggios that opens “Monk's Moods” - a much welcomed contrast to most of the other hand-me-down pianos that Monk is generally known to play. Perhaps the only other thing that could be compared to the magic of the two jazz legends is the clarity and quality of the fifty-year-old recording.

Though the earlier works of Thelonious Monk were highly regarded by peers and several critics, it was an entirely different approach of jazz than what was in the mainstream. It was, generally speaking, too “complex”. In an effort to make Monk known to a wider audience, Riverside (his then label) had to convince him to record his interpretations of jazz standards. Finally, in 1956, did he produce an album entirely of his own. And following that, in 1957, he worked with John Coltrane at New York's Five Spot Cafe – who had recently succeeded in kicking a heroin addiction in the earlier part of the year. This six-month gig heavy influenced Coltrane's development of a remarkably unique style (dubbed “sheets of sound” by jazz critic Ira Gitler in 1958). And in Coltrane's 1960 album Giant Steps, this style of substitute harmonic progression – known as Coltrane changes – is evident; the original recording of "Countdown" (considered by many prominent jazz musicians to be one of the toughest charts) from the album begins with just Coltrane and Lex Humphries (drums) playing. The other musicians couldn't keep up with the changes to the chart, but finally caught on in the end.

Coltrane's collaboration with Monk was certainly a “giant step” in developing his legendary style. Along with several Monk classics like “Monk's Moods”, “Blue Monk” and “Epistrophy”, a brilliant rendition of the jazz standard “Sweet and Lovely” in which Coltrane displays his genius, the album also contains several humorous commentaries by Monk.

This album does not desire appreciation. It requires, commands, mandates to be set on loop on your music player.

By: Lee Wilson