Underground/Thelonious Monk (1968)
‘Jazzy’ was a word that my parents used to refer to any music that was uptempo, had a slight beat and was secular. Eddie Calvert was ‘jazzy’. So too were The Beatles. The family record collection had no real jazz LPs though.
The day I realised that there was a certain kind of music called jazz, without a y, was when my brother Gregg played me Thelonious Monk’s Underground. He spun a tale about how Monk had been a soldier in WWII and the Nazi prisoner on the cover was a real German Monk had stuffed and brought home as a trophy. I was sucked in and for years thought that all jazz musicians lived in basements strewn with straw, wine bottles and hand grenades.
I can’t remember what I thought of the music on the album but over the years I’ve fallen completely in love with it. Monk’s unique approach to the piano—awkwardly syncopated, highly patterned, weirdly timed, bursting with surprise—is on full display here from the very opening bars of the opening track. Accompanied by his long term partners on saxophone, drums and bass Monk takes the listener on a musical adventure that matches the endless possibilities of the cover art. Underground swings and prances (albeit in Monk’s patented mode) from start to finish. For years it was the only jazz record I owned and because it opened the door to the jazz universe it comes in at number 8 most influential album.
njrabe 