Criss-Cross - Thelonious Monk

Oct

8

Criss-Cross - Thelonious Monk

≡ Category: 1960s, Hard Bop, Music Reviews, Worth A Listen |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Rating:

WORTH A LISTEN

I don’t care if Charlie Rouse played with Monk longer than any other saxophonist. He’s weak. There’s a reason why he disappeared after Monk stopped performing.

Truth be told, the only saxophonist that ever played with Monk and did justice to his compositions was Coltrane, during the legendary date at the Five Spot in 1957, which was immortalized in the classic recording Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane. He was the only one that both understood the essence of compositions like Nutty and had the chops to properly respect their rhythmic and harmonic basis.

Another reason that I can’t really recommend Criss-Cross is because the vast majority of the tunes on this release have been performed elsewhere and by better musicians, not including Monk himself.

However, if you are a Monk fanatic (I’ll cop to that), you’ll want to make sure you have all of his original tunes, and Criss-Cross contains the best recording of Eronel. Also, while Monk may have surrounded himself with second string players towards the end of his career, he himself was playing as well as ever, at least on Criss-Cross.

So, for the vast majority of jazz fans, I would skip Criss-Cross. Thelonious Monk fanatics might want to check it out. You know who you are.