Thelonious Monk

Three years after the last Columbia session, Monk walked into Chappell Studios in London and recorded for an entire afternoon. The solo piano material that became Volume 1 is the finest of the three London Collection albums, and one of the last great documents of Monk's playing. "Trinkle, Tinkle" opens with a ferocity that dispels any notion that three years away from the recording studio had diminished his powers. The tempo is brisk, the articulation sharp, the harmonic invention as startling as it had been twenty years earlier on the Blue Note sessions.

"Nice Work If You Can Get It" is played with a rubato freedom that recalls the Thelonious Himself sessions, but the touch is different: heavier, more deliberate, each chord weighted as if Monk were testing the piano's resonance and finding it adequate. "Crepuscule with Nellie" is the emotional center, played with a tenderness that the quartet versions could never quite achieve. Without Rouse's saxophone, without the rhythm section, the composition's inner beauty is exposed: the unusual intervals, the way the melody rises and falls like breathing, the harmonic logic that makes every surprising chord feel inevitable.

The Black Lion recording quality is excellent, capturing the full range of the instrument with a clarity that serves the solo format perfectly. This is Monk at fifty-four, playing with the concentrated intensity of a man who knows he may not record again. It was his last studio date as a leader: apart from a Giants of Jazz session in Bern in November 1972, he never entered a recording studio again. The music he left behind on this date stands among the finest solo piano recordings in jazz.

A note for collectors: this is one of jazz's discographical puzzles. These November 15, 1971 sessions, Monk's last as a leader, with Al McKibbon on bass and Art Blakey on drums, were first issued by Black Lion as two standalone LPs under different titles: Something in Blue (BLP 30119, 1972) and The Man I Love (BLP 30141, 1973). Black Lion only reorganized the complete session into the unified The London Collection in 1988 and 1989, splitting it into Volume 1 (solo piano, 1988), Volume 2 (the trio, 1988), and Volume 3 (alternates and remaining takes, 1989). The "London Collection Vol. 1-3" that modern vinyl buyers chase are the audiophile reissues ORG Music cut from the master tapes, mastered by Bernie Grundman and pressed at Pallas in Germany, between 2012 and 2016. For the vintage artifacts, hunt the 1972 and 1973 Black Lion pressings of Something in Blue and The Man I Love; for the complete, best-sounding sequence, the ORG Music LPs are the ones to buy.

The trio tracks from the London session reunite Monk with Al McKibbon and Art Blakey, both of whom had played with him at various points over the previous two decades. McKibbon was Monk's bassist in the Giants of Jazz, the touring group that had played London the night before, and Blakey had been there from the very beginning, playing on the first Blue Note sessions in 1947. The reunion produces music of startling vitality: "Evidence" swings with a force that the Columbia quartet rarely matched, Blakey driving the time with the aggressive cymbal work that was his signature from the Jazz Messengers years.

"Nutty" gets a trio reading that's looser and more playful than any quartet version, McKibbon's bass lines providing just enough harmonic information for Monk to stretch the melody in unexpected directions. Blakey's brush work on "Misterioso" is exquisite, the sound of a drummer who understands intuitively when to push and when to lay back. The rapport between these three musicians is deep enough that the music sounds fully formed despite having been recorded with minimal preparation.

The trio format strips Monk's music to its essentials in a different way than the solo pieces: the bass and drums create a rhythmic framework that Monk can play with, against, or alongside as the mood strikes him. McKibbon's tone is warm and precise, and he has the musical intelligence to know when Monk's silence is deliberate and when it's an invitation. Volume 2 is a notch below Volume 1 only because the solo piano tracks have a slightly greater intensity of concentration. As a trio record, it's magnificent.

For collectors: this trio material first appeared on the original Black Lion LPs Something in Blue (1972) and The Man I Love (1973) before Black Lion gathered the full session as The London Collection in 1988, the trio performances forming Volume 2. The audiophile vinyl that circulates today is the ORG Music reissue cut from the master tapes; Volume 2 arrived in 2015 with a Record Store Day clear-vinyl edition.

The third and final volume gathers the remaining material from the Chappell Studios afternoon: a mix of solo piano pieces and trio tracks with McKibbon and Blakey, plus alternate takes that didn't make the first two volumes. "Something in Blue" is the highlight, a solo blues original by Monk that finds him playing with a feeling so deep it borders on meditation.

"Hackensack" gets a trio treatment that bounces and swings with an energy that belies the informal, session-end atmosphere. Blakey sounds like he could play all night, his snare accents punctuating Monk's phrases with the percussive commentary that made their partnership one of the most enduring in jazz. The alternate takes offer glimpses of the creative process: slightly different tempos, different harmonic choices in the improvisations, the same compositions viewed from a slightly different angle.

As a final studio document, Volume 3 is inevitably bittersweet. Monk would live another ten years, but he never made another studio record of his own; beyond the Giants of Jazz dates of 1972, what survives is a pair of live quartet tapes from 1972 and 1975. The reasons for his withdrawal from music are complex and personal, and the music on these three London volumes offers no hint of decline. The playing is strong, the ideas are fresh, the touch is unmistakably Monk's. Whatever drove him to silence, it wasn't a failure of the music. These London recordings are the proof: a master at work, fully in command, choosing to say goodbye on his own terms.

For collectors: these alternates and remaining takes, several of them previously unissued, were compiled by Black Lion as Volume 3 of The London Collection in 1989. ORG Music reissued the volume on audiophile vinyl in 2016, including a Record Store Day clear-vinyl pressing.