Thelonious Monk, Brilliant Corners
A Monk pinnacle with an all-star cast, here's an an all-time classic
Monk's third album for Riverside was the first devoted to the pianist's own original compositions. But Monk's stellar, ever-shifting quintet — which includes Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, Max Roach, Oscar Pettiford, Paul Chambers and Ernie Henry — transformed Brilliant Corners into much more than a solo outing.
Recorded in New York in December of 1956, the album is endlessly inventive: "Pannonica" features Monk playing the piano with one hand and a celeste with the other. On "Bemsha Swing," Max Roach doubles his drumming with a series of tympani rolls. On the 13-minute "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are," the group stretches the blues almost beyond recognition. And on the only piano solo to appear, Monk burrows so hard into "I Surrender, Dear" that he reaches the emotional depths Louis Armstrong only hinted at in his own, 1931 recording of the ballad.
Better yet, Monk's spare, percussive playing gave his sidemen plenty of room to work with, his own genius bringing out the best in some very exceptional musicians: Sonny Rollins 'solo on "Pannonica" is one of the finest he recorded, and the four tracks recorded with Ernie Henry (who died in a car crash not long afterwards) capture the precise moment in which the young alto sax prodigy came into his own. As a pinnacle of Monk's recording career, Brilliant Corners deserves a spot on any jazz lover's top-ten list.
