Unearthed Ella Fitzgerald and Thelonius Monk will make your Christmas swing
Rare recordings by two of jazz’s giants, Thelonius Monk and Ella Fitzgerald, have been unearthed by leading labels in time to put a bit of a swing into your Christmas.
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Rare recordings by two of jazz’s giants, Thelonius Monk and Ella Fitzgerald, have been unearthed by leading labels in time to put a bit of a swing into your Christmas.
In 1968, a tumultuous year and against a backdrop of racial tension and political volatility, 16-year-old jazz-mad student Danny Scher chanced his arm and managed to contact the notoriously eccentric pianist and composer Thelonius Monk and invited him to play at his college in Palo Alto, California. To his surprise Monk agreed and turned up with his quartet at Scher’s house. They all piled into the family car and played a 48-minute set. The college janitor recorded it for posterity.
The result lay in Scher’s attic for years and he went on to become a promoter working in San Francisco with Bill Graham. Then recently Scher remembered the tape, got it mixed by Grandmixer DXT – hip hop’s first turntablist – and the resulting five tracks have been released by Verve/Impulse!
Monk’s son TS said: “I wasn’t even aware of my dad playing a high school gig, but he and the band were on it. When I first heard the tape, from the first measure, I knew my father was feeling really good.”
Monk is in sparkling form, as are tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales and drummer Ben Riley. The set comprises such classics as Ruby My Dear, a wonderful barrel-house 14-minute version of Blue Monk, Epistrophy, Well You Needn’t and a collector’s item of Don’t Blame Me with Monk playing solo.
The podcast telling the whole remarkable story is available at Verve Presents: Monk Goes to School.
And Verve has also released a forgotten recording of Ella Fitzgerald’s concert at Berlin’s Sportpalast on March 25, 1962 – two years after her famous Berlin concert. It was made privately by her manager Norman Granz, who founded the Verve label, and was recorded, remarkably for the period, in both mono and stereo.
The 44-year-old First Lady of Jazz is in ebullient form, full of infectious joie de vivre, and her voice is firmly in its golden phase. Her scat singing, peerless phrasing and that warm expressiveness were seldom bettered on a set list which included hits like Mack The Knife, Cheek to Cheek and Summertime alongside lesser known tracks.
As well as keeping breakneck faster numbers like Jersey Bounce and Clap Hands Here Come Charlie! well on the tracks, Fitzgerald shows consummate artistry on ballads as well. Cry Me A River, made famous by Julie London a few years before, is gorgeous, and although nobody can match Billy Holiday’s heartbreaking version of Good Morning Heartache, Fitzgerald comes within a hair’s breadth with a very different take.
Her trio, led by pianist Paul Smith, Wilfred Middlebrooks on bass, and Stan Levey on drums, match her for energy, precision and wit. The recording quality is remarkable – as fresh and immediate as if it were recorded yesterday.
Palo Alto is available from Birdland Records for $28 (CD) or $75 (vinyl) and Ella Fitzgerald The Lost Berlin Tapes is available for $29.