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Label:
   Columbia - http://www.columbiarecords.com/
Serial:
   CS 64886
Title:
   Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
Description:
   "Straight, No Chaser"

Thelonious Monk
Details:
   1. Locomotive
2. I Didn't Know About You [Take 4]
3. Straight, No Chaser
4. Japanese Fold Song: Kojo No Tsuki [Kojo No Tsuki]
5. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
6. We See
7. This Is My Story, This Is My Song
8. I Didn't Know About You [take 1]
9. Green Chimneys
Genre:
   Jazz
Content:
   Stereo
Media:
   Single Layer
Recording type:
   Analogue
Recording info:
   Original recording produced by Teo Macero
Original recording engineer: Frank Laico
Reissue produced by Orrin Keepnews
Executive producers: Steve Berkowitz and Kevin Gore
Remixed to digital tapes from the original four-track analog masters, re-equalized and remastered by Mark Wilder, December, 1995 at Sony Music Studios, NYC
Engineered for SACD by Mark Wilder
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Reviews: 2
Review by JW July 19, 2003 (2 of 2 found this review helpful)
Performance:  Sonics:
Monk is one of those Jazz giants you can really 'get into'. He was considered a strange fellow at first (a nut to some) and someone whose piano technique was doubtful (non-existent to some). And then suddenly in the late fifties someone discovered he was a genius. With hindsight many people claim that in fact he always was a genius, a man ahead of his time, an original. Better leave that judgement to those in the know: John Coltrane said of Monk; "He is a musical architect of the highest order".

'Straight, No Chaser' is a studio album in the classical jazz traditon. The SACD is a transfer of the re-issue and thus contains the full 25 minutes originally not found on the LP. 'Green Chimneys' was not on the LP for example. Overall a lot of edits were made to compose this re-issued album which now appears on SACD with this disc.

The band was going to be Monk's fourth and last team, with members such as Charlie Rouse (ts), Ben Riley (dr) and Larry Gales (bass). All tracks are fantastic in my view. Monk's signature playing which is difficult to describe (for me:-) but it's sort of improvisational, melodic, soulful and swinging and contrarian at the same time. This makes a Monk album fascinating. There is solo piano on 'Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea' and a nice and sensitive ballad in Ellington's 'I Didn't Know About You'.

The sound quality of SNC is very good (4 stars). It's bettered by Blues in Orbit, Chet and Nefertiti for example, but it's good. For me is shows what SACD can achieve with an analog master tape. The piano sounds big and real, and so does the sax which sounds nice and dry.

Jw

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Review by rsbeck March 15, 2004
Performance:  Sonics:
A wonderful offering by Thelonious Monk and his support players. Monk is in top form and Charlie Rouse on the tenor sax is a revelation. One of those discs that gets in your player and keeps returning. While the sonics are not of the oooh and ahhh rank, they are still top notch, and the performances are just plain great.

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