| Brilliant Corners | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | April 4, 1957 | |||
| Recorded | October 9, October 15, and December 7, 1956 | |||
| Genre | Hard bop | |||
| Length | 42:47 | |||
| Label | Riverside | |||
| Producer | Orrin Keepnews | |||
| Thelonious Monk chronology | ||||
| ||||
Brilliant Corners is a studio album by American jazz musician Thelonious Monk. It was his third album for Riverside Records, [1] and the first, for this label, to include his own compositions. The complex title track required over a dozen takes in the studio.
The album was recorded in three sessions in late 1956 with two different quintets. "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-Are" and "Pannonica", on which Monk played the celeste, were recorded on October 9 with saxophonists Ernie Henry and Sonny Rollins, bassist Oscar Pettiford, and drummer Max Roach. The former composition was titled as a phonetic rendering of Monk's exaggerated pronunciation of "Blue Bolivar Blues", which referred to the Bolivar Hotel where Pannonica de Koenigswarter resided; Monk had met her during his first trip to Europe in 1954. [1]
On October 15, Monk attempted to record the title track with the same band during a four-hour session. The complexity of the title track became a challenge for Monk's sidemen, who attempted twenty-five takes, and led to tension between him and Henry, who nearly broke down mentally, and Pettiford, who exchanged harsh words with Monk during the session. Monk tried to make it easier on Henry by not playing during his alto solo. [1] During one of the takes, producer Orrin Keepnews and others in the control room could not hear Pettiford's playing and checked his bass microphone for a malfunction, but ultimately realized that he was pantomiming his playing. [2] Without a completed single take, Keepnews ultimately pieced together the album version from multiple takes. [1]
On December 7, "Bemsha Swing" was recorded with Paul Chambers on bass and trumpeter Clark Terry, who replaced Henry, and Monk recorded a solo piano version of "I Surrender, Dear". [1]
The title track has an unconventional song structure that deviates from both standard song form and blues structures, as well as from Monk's African-American music roots. Its ternary form employs an eight-bar A section, followed by a seven-bar B section, and a modified seven-bar A section, and features a double-time theme in each second chorus and complex rhythmic accents. [1]
"Bemsha Swing" was the only composition on the album that Monk had recorded in a previous version.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music |   [3] |
| Tom Hull | A [4] |
| Jazzwise | [5] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [6] |
According to Down Beat magazine, Brilliant Corners was the most critically acclaimed album of 1957. [7] Nat Hentoff, the magazine's editor, gave it five stars in a contemporary review and called it "Riverside's most important modern jazz LP to date." [8] Jazz writer David H. Rosenthal later called it a "classic" hard bop session. [9] Music critic Robert Christgau said that, along with his 1958 live album Misterioso , Brilliant Corners represents Monk's artistic peak. [10] In his five-star review of the album, Allmusic's Lindsay Planer wrote that it "may well be considered the alpha and omega of post-World War II American jazz. No serious jazz collection should be without it." [11] Awarding a maximum four-star rating, The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings included the album in its suggested “core collection” of essential recordings. [6]
In 2003, Brilliant Corners was one of fifty recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. It has also been included in the reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die , with reviewer Andrew Gilbert saying it "marked Monk's return as composer of the first order." [12] Because of its historical significance the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. [13]
All tracks written by Thelonious Monk except where noted
Side One
Side Two
Musicians
Production
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.
Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter was a British-born jazz patron and writer. A leading patron of bebop, she was a member of the Rothschild family.
Monk's Music is a jazz album by the Thelonious Monk Septet, which for this recording included Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane. It was recorded in New York City on June 26, 1957, and released in November the same year.
Monk's Dream is an album by jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, released by Columbia Records in March 1963. It was Monk's first album for Columbia following his five-year recording period with Riverside Records.
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Misterioso is a 1958 live album by American jazz ensemble the Thelonious Monk Quartet. By the time of its recording, pianist and bandleader Thelonious Monk had overcome an extended period of career difficulties and achieved stardom with his residency at New York's Five Spot Café, beginning in 1957. He returned there the following year for a second stint with his quartet, featuring drummer Roy Haynes, bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin. Along with Thelonious in Action (1958), Misterioso captures portions of the ensemble's August 7 show at the venue.
Nica's Tempo is the most common latter-day title of an album by the Gigi Gryce Orchestra and Quartet, recorded and first released in late 1955. The title track is a reference to Nica de Koenigswarter a.k.a. "The Bebop Baroness" or "The Jazz Baroness", a patron of jazz musicians such as Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker.
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Monk in Tokyo is a live album recorded in 1963 and first released in Japan by Columbia Records as two separate LPs in 1963, then in edited form as a single LP in 1969 by CBS/Sony Records and reissued in complete form as a double LP in 1973, featuring several original Monk compositions as well as jazz standards.
Thelonious Himself is a studio album by Thelonious Monk released in 1957 by Riverside Records. It was Monk's fourth album for the label. The album features Monk playing solo piano, except for the final track, "Monk's Mood", which features John Coltrane on tenor saxophone and Wilbur Ware on bass. It was Monk's second solo piano studio album, and it was the first made by an American label and distributed in the United States.
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Thelonious Monk at the Blackhawk is an album by jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. It was originally issued on the Riverside label as RLP 12-323 (mono)/1171 (stereo) and Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 305–2 in 1987.
Last Chorus is a posthumous album by American jazz saxophonist Ernie Henry featuring tracks recorded in 1956 and 1957 for the Riverside label.
Thelonious Monk in Italy is a live album by American jazz pianist Thelonious Monk featuring tracks recorded in Italy in 1961 and released on the Riverside label in 1963.
Thelonious Monk: The Complete Riverside Recordings is a comprehensive compilation of the recordings made by Thelonious Monk for Riverside Records between 21 July 1955 and 21 April 1961. It was released by Riverside in 1986 on 22 LPs or on 15 CDs. It contains all the tracks previously released both on the original and on the later expanded CD versions of all his Riverside albums, together with some tracks never previously released.
The following is the discography of American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (1917–1982).
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