Album: Genius of Modern Music (Volume One)
Artist: Thelonious Monk
Year: 1951
Genre: Bebop
Grade: A+
Originally recorded in 1947 and ’48, the eight songs that make up the Genius of Modern Music (Volume One) compilation LP bristle with innovation and discovery. Each measure finds Thelonious Monk inventing something new — from the jittery rhythms of “Misterioso” to the angular melodies of “Thelonious,” this is music that eerily foretells the shape of jazz to come.
Three of the songs featured on the LP can also be found high up in the Colin’s Review 50 Best Songs of the 1940s list: “Epistrophy” (#20), which seamlessly merges bebop and the avant-garde and introduced the world of jazz to Monk’s atonal, idiosyncratic style; “Ruby My Dear” (#9), which is Monk’s most beautiful and cathartic romantic ballad; and “‘Round Midnight” (#3), the woozy, stoned, late-night classic that proves that Monk indeed deserves to be called the Genius of Modern Music.
Every song recorded during these sessions is iconic. Whether performing with a quartet or sextet, with Art Blakey on drums or Milt Jackson on vibraphone, Monk’s Genius of Modern Music (Volume One) — which is the superior of the two Genius albums — is one of the greatest jazz collections of all time.
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