Thelonious Monk discography

The following is the discography of American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (1917–1982).

Discography

Blue Note Records (1947–1952)

Singles

Singles released from the Blue Note sessions include the following:^[1]

Blue Note 500 series (10 inch 78 rpm)

BN 542 "Thelonious" (BN311-0) / "Suburban Eyes" (BN310-1)
BN 543 "'Round About Midnight" (BN321-1) / "Well, You Needn't" (BN314-0)
BN 547 "Evonce" (BN309-4) / "Off Minor" (BN317-1)
BN 548 "In Walked Bud" (BN318-3) / "Epistrophy" (BN330-0)
BN 549 "Ruby, My Dear" (BN313-1) / "Evidence" (BN328-0)
BN 560 "Humph" (BN308-2) / "Misterioso" (BN329-0)

Blue Note 1200 series (10 inch 78 rpm)

BN 1201 "I Should Care" (BN327-2) / "All the Things You Are" (BN326-3)

Blue Note 1500 series (10 inch 78 rpm)

BN 1564 "I Mean You" (BN331-1) / "Symphonette" (BN334-1) ["Symphonette" not recorded by Monk; Tadd Dameron performance]
BN 1565 "Who Knows" (BN320-0) / "Monk's Mood" (BN319-0)
BN 1575 "April in Paris" (BN315-1) / "Nice Work If You Can Get It" (BN312-1)
BN 1589 "Four in One" (BN392-1) / "Straight, No Chaser" (BN395-1)
BN 1590 "Criss Cross" (BN393-0) / "Eronel" (BN394-0)
BN 1591 "Ask Me Now" (BN396-1) / "Willow Weep for Me" (BN397-0)
BN 1602 "Skippy" (BN434-1 tk.2) / "Let's Cool One" (BN438-0 tk.11)
BN 1603 "Hornin' In" (BN435-3 tk.7) / "Carolina Moon" (BN437-0 tk.10)

Blue Note 1600 series (7 inch 45 rpm)

BN 45-1664 "'Round About Midnight" (BN321-1) / "In Walked Bud" (BN318-3)
BN 45-1646 "Lillie" [Milt Jackson] (BN423-1 tk.4) / "Willow Weep for Me" (BN397-0) [credited to Milt Jackson]

LPs

10-inch LPs

The recording sessions had been issued in various forms before 12 inch LP era of BLP-1500 series. And initial 12 inch LP versions still contained the six Blue Note recording sessions in non-chronological configurations. CD versions became to reflect the recording dates roughly in the following notes:

1951: Genius of Modern Music: Volume 1 (Blue Note LP 5002)
1951: Genius of Modern Music: Volume 2 (Blue Note LP 5009)
1952: Milt Jackson (Blue Note LP 5011)

12-inch LPs

1956: Milt Jackson (BLP 1509) – 1948, 1951 and 1952 Blue Note recording sessions
1956: Genius of Modern Music: Volume 1 (BLP 1510) – 1947 Blue Note recording sessions
1956: Genius of Modern Music: Volume 2 (BLP 1511) – 1951 and 1952 Blue Note recording sessions

Live albums

1993: Discovery! Live at the Five Spot – Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane – live recorded at the Five Spot Café in 1958
2005: Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall – live recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1957

Box sets

1947- 52 The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk (1983 - Mosaic Records 4 LP Boxed Set, MR4-101) and (1994 - Blue Note, 4 CD Set)

Prestige Records (1952–1954)

LPs

Original 10-inch LPs

Before their eventual formulation into three somewhat haphazard, non-chronological 12-inch LPs, Thelonious Monk's Prestige output consisted of five strictly chronological 10-inch (shorter-duration) LPs. The LPs were re-released by Craft Records in a limited edition in 2017. The LPs were released in the 1950s as follows:^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Thelonious Monk Trio: Thelonious (Prestige PrLP 142) – recorded on October 15, 1952 (side A) and December 18, 1952 (side B)
Thelonious Monk Quintet Blows For LP, Featuring Sonny Rollins (Prestige PrLP 166) – recorded on November 13, 1953
Thelonious Monk Quintet (with Frank Foster, Art Blakey) (Prestige PrLP 180) – recorded on May 11, 1954
Thelonious Monk Plays (with Percy Heath and Art Blakey) (Prestige PrLP 189) – recorded on September 22, 1954
Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk (Prestige PrLP 190) – recorded on October 25, 1954,

The majority of the contents of the first 4 of these five LPs were released, sequenced mostly in order, on a Prestige double-LP compilation in 1972, PR/PRT 24006, Thelonious Monk. The exception was the take of "Think of One" selected; on the compilation, Take 1 was used instead of the originally-selected Take 2.

Recompilations as 12-inch LP albums

Thelonious Monk Trio (Prestige 7027, 1956) – recorded in 1952–54
Monk (Prestige 7053, 1956) – recorded in 1953-54
Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins (Prestige 7075, 1956) – recorded in 1953-54

Box sets

The Complete Prestige Recordings of Thelonious Monk (2000, 3 CD, Prestige)

Riverside Records (1955–1961)

1955 - Thelonious Monk Plays the Music of Duke Ellington (1956)
1956 - The Unique Thelonious Monk (1956)
1956 - Brilliant Corners (1957)
1957 - Thelonious Himself (1957)
1957 - Monk's Music (1957)
1957 - Mulligan Meets Monk (1957) with Gerry Mulligan
1957 - The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings (2006) – complete 1957 studio recordings with John Coltrane
1957 - Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (1961)
1958 - Thelonious in Action with Johnny Griffin (1958) – live at The Five Spot Café
1958 - Misterioso (1958) – recorded on the same date with Thelonious in Action above
1959 - The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall (1959) – Charlie Rouse joined the band then
1959 - 5 by Monk by 5 (1959)
1959 - Thelonious Alone in San Francisco (1959)
1960 - Thelonious Monk at the Blackhawk
1961 - Thelonious Monk in Italy (1963)
1961 - Monk in France (1965) – live

Box sets

The Complete Riverside Recordings of Thelonious Monk (1991, 15 CD, Riverside)
All Monk. The Riverside Albums (2010, 16 CD, Universal)

Columbia Records (1962–1968)

1962 - Monk's Dream (1963)
1962-63 - Criss-Cross (1963)
1963 - In Tokyo 1 and In Tokyo 2 (1963) – live, later released together in edited and complete form as Monk in Tokyo (1969, 1973)
1963 Miles & Monk at Newport (1964) – with unrelated 1958 Miles Davis performance
1963 - Big Band and Quartet in Concert (1964) – live
1964 - It's Monk's Time (1964)
1964 - Monk (1965)
1964 - Live at the It Club (1982) – live
1964 - Live at the Jazz Workshop (1982) – live
1964-65 - Solo Monk (1965)
1965 - Misterioso (Recorded on Tour) () – live
1966-67 - Straight, No Chaser (1967)
1967-68 - Underground (1968)
1968 - Monk's Blues (1968)

Box sets

The Thelonious Monk Quartet Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection (2012, 6 CD, Sony)
The Thelonious Monk Complete Columbia Live Albums Collection (2015, 10 CD, Sony)

On other labels

1954: Piano Solo (Disques Vogue, 1954) - the first solo piano album, recorded in Paris on June 4, 1954
1959: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (Sam, 2017) – recorded on July 27, 1959
1961: Complete 1961 Amsterdam Concert (Solar, 2014) – recorded on April 15, 1961
1961: April in Paris (Milestone, 1981) – recorded on April 18, 1961
1961: Live in Stockholm (Dragon, 1987) – recorded on May 16, 1961
1963: Mønk (Gearbox, 2018) – recorded on March 5, 1963
1963: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival '63 (Storyville, 1994) – live recorded on September 21 & 22, 1963
1964: Live in Paris, 1964 (France's Concert, 1989) – live recorded at Maison de la Radio on February 23, 1964
1964: Live at the 1964 Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey Jazz Festival Records, 2007) – live recorded on September 20, 1964
1967: Thelonious Monk Nonet Live in Paris 1967 (France's Concert, 1988) – live recorded on November 3, 1967
1968: Palo Alto (Impulse!, 2020) – live recorded at Palo Alto High School on October 27, 1968^[6]^[7]
1969: Paris 1969 (Laser Swing Productions/Blue Note, 2013)[CD + DVD-Video] – live recorded at Salle Pleyel in Paris on December 15, 1969
1971: The Man I Love (Black Lion, 1971) – recorded on November 15, 1971
1971: Something in Blue (Black Lion, 1972) – recorded on November 15, 1971
1971: Blue Sphere (Black Lion, ?) – recorded on November 15, 1971

Compilations

Monk's Miracles (1966)
Monk's Greatest Hits (Columbia, 1968)
The Best of Thelonious Monk (Riverside Records, 1969)
Midnight at Minton's (c.1941, issued 1973 under Don Byas' name. Monk does not play on all tracks of this or the other two CDs of 1941 material)
After Hours (c.1941, issued 1973 under Charlie Christian's name)
After Hours in Harlem (c.1941, issued 1973 under Hot Lips Page's name)
Monk's Classic Recordings (1983)
Blues Five Spot (1984, unissued recordings from 1958 to 1961, with various saxophonists and Thad Jones, cornet)
Monk Alone: The Complete Solo Studio Recordings of Thelonious Monk 1962–1968 (1998, 2 CD, Sony)
The Columbia Years: '62–'68 (2001, 3 CD, Sony)
The Essential Thelonious Monk (2003, CD, Columbia/Legacy)
The Complete Vogue Recordings/The Black Lion Sessions (1954–71) (3LP, Mosaic)^[8]

As sideman

With Art Blakey

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk (Atlantic, 1958)
The Giants of Jazz (Atlantic, 1971)

With Dave Brubeck

Summitt Sessions (Columbia, 1970) – 1 track

With Miles Davis

Bags' Groove (Prestige, 1954)
Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (Prestige, 1954)

With Coleman Hawkins

Bean and the Boys (Prestige, 1972) – recorded in 1944. 4 tracks only.

With Milt Jackson

Wizard of the Vibes (Blue Note, 1948) – a.k.a. Milt Jackson (Blue Note, 1956)

With Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie

Bird and Diz (Verve, 1950)

With Sonny Rollins

Moving Out (Prestige, 1954)
Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2 (Blue Note, 1957)

With Gigi Gryce

Nica's Tempo (Savoy, 1955)

With Clark Terry

In Orbit (Riverside, 1958)

References

^ "Blue Note Records Catalog: 78 RPM series".
^ Ingalls, Chris, "Thelonious Monk: The Complete Prestige 10-inch LP Collection", popmatters.com, 20 December 2017.
^ "Craft To Release Historic Box Set of Monk on 10-Inch Vinyl", DownBeat, November 16, 2017.
^ Amarosi, AD, "Thelonious Monk, “The Complete Prestige 10-Inch LP Collection”, Flood Magazine, December 21st 2017.
^ Helfet, Gabriela, "Five Thelonious Monk albums remastered and reissued in new 10″ box set", thevinylfactory.com, October 31, 2017.
^ Stone, Sam, "Epistrophy: Unreleased Thelonious Monk 'Palo Alto' Concert Arrives in July", theseconddisc.com, June 19, 2020.
^ King, Noel, and Nate Chinen, "A Previously Unreleased Thelonious Monk Concert Is Coming Next Month", NPR, June 19, 2020.
^ "Out-Of-Print Limited Edition Jazz Collections". Mosaic Records - Home for Jazz fans!. Retrieved 2021-07-21.

External links

Thelonious Monk's discography
Covers and Liner Notes of Blue Note 10" LPs: http://www.gokudo.co.jp/Record/BlueNote1/index.htm
Covers and Liner Notes of Blue Note 12" LPs: http://www.gokudo.co.jp/Record/BlueNote2/index.htm
Blue Note 78 rpm series (12 inch 78 rpm) - BN 1 Meade "Lux" Lewis - Melancholy / Solitude 1939
Blue Note Records Catalog: 45 rpm 1600 series - single index

Thelonious Monk