Needle Time

  Thelonious Monk Septet - Monk's Music [VMP-C073 USA 2023 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Originally released on Riverside Records in mono in 1957 and in stereo a year later. This album features some of the greatest jazz musicians of all-time performing together as the Thelonious Monk Septet - the Monk on piano, Art Blakey on drums, John Coltrane & Coleman Hawkins on sax, Ray Copeland on trumpet, Wilbur Ware on bass and Gigi Ryce on alto sax. Unusually, Concord gave this stereo release to Vinyl Me Please, cut by Ryan K Smith from the original master tapes and pressed at GZ Media in the Czech Republic. I suspect the mono version may resurface later this year with a RTI or QRP pressing (hopefully) on Craft Recordings. The original recording sessions were in New York during the summer of 1957, in a studio set-up for monaural recordings only. The engineers hung microphones from the ceiling to capture the binaural/stereo version, whereas the mono mikes were directly at the musicians. This r...

  The Thelonious Monk Quartet - Monk's Dream [IMP6014 USA 2017 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Effectively Monk's debut album from 1963 for Columbia was remastered from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray for small batch reissue label Impex Records. Monk had previously recorded for Riverside and Prestige Records, however those smaller labels could not match Columbia's distribution, hence this becoming one of his most well known hard bop albums. Monk's outstanding piano play is augmented by Frank Dunlop on drums, John Ore on bass and Charles Rouse on sax.  A1 Monk's Dream A2 Body And Soul A3 Bright Mississippi A4 Five Spot Blues B1 Bolivar Blues B2 Just A Gigolo B3 Bye-Ya B4 Sweet And Lovely