| At Carnegie Hall | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by the Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane | ||||
| Released | September 27, 2005 | |||
| Recorded | November 29, 1957 | |||
| Venue | Carnegie Hall New York City | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 51:49 | |||
| Label | Blue Note | |||
| Producer | Michael Cuscuna, T. S. Monk (restoration) | |||
| Thelonious Monk chronology | ||||
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| John Coltrane chronology | ||||
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Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall is a live album by the Thelonious Monk Quartet, which included John Coltrane at the time. It was recorded at Carnegie Hall on November 29, 1957, and was released on September 27, 2005 by Blue Note.
Background
Recording
It was recorded on 29 November 1957 at "Thanksgiving Jazz", a benefit concert produced by Kenneth Lee Karpe for the Morningside Community Center in Harlem. Other acts performing included Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Sonny Rollins, and Chet Baker with Zoot Sims. The recording, by Voice of America, documents two sets by the Monk Quartet with Coltrane that night—an early set (tracks 1–5) and a late set (tracks 6–9), which the recording does not fully document.
Preservation and Release
The tape of the performance was stored for decades at the Library of Congress with the rest of the Voice of America network recordings. In 2005, as part of routine processing of backlog recordings from that collection, the recording was digitized by a team supervised by Larry Applebaum. The recording was then restored by producer Michael Cuscuna and T.S. Monk (Thelonious Monk's son).
Reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| All About Jazz | (favourable) |
| AllMusic |  |
| Robert Christgau | A |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | + crown |
| Rolling Stone | |
The recording has been highly praised. Newsweek called it the "musical equivalent of the discovery of a new Mount Everest," and Amazon.com editorial reviewer Lloyd Sachs called it "the ultimate definition of a classic". Soon after its release, it became the #1 best selling music recording on Amazon.com.
The discovery substantially increased coverage of Monk and Coltrane's partnership. The only other recordings known to feature both performers are from four sessions that took place in April, June and July 1957 and were originally issued on Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, Monk's Music and Thelonious Himself. The album Thelonious Monk: Live at the Five Spot: Discovery! presents another live performance by Monk's quartet and Coltrane; it was recorded in 1957 at the Five Spot Café in New York City.
Track listing
All tracks are written by Thelonious Monk, except as noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Monk's Mood" | 7:52 | |
| 2. | "Evidence" | 4:41 | |
| 3. | "Crepuscule with Nellie" | 4:26 | |
| 4. | "Nutty" | 5:03 | |
| 5. | "Epistrophy" |
| 4:29 |
| 6. | "Bye-Ya" | 6:31 | |
| 7. | "Sweet and Lovely" | 9:34 | |
| 8. | "Blue Monk" | 6:31 | |
| 9. | "Epistrophy" (Incomplete) | 2:24 |
Personnel
Thelonious Monk Quartet
- Thelonious Monk – piano
- John Coltrane – tenor saxophone
- Ahmed Abdul-Malik – bass
- Shadow Wilson – drums
References
- AllMusic review
- All About Jazz review
- Christgau, Robert. "Consumer Guide: Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall". The Village Voice: December 27, 2005. Archived from the original on 2009-09-01.
- Rolling Stone review
- Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
- Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 1021. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.