Parker and you’ll hear echoes of it here — distilled into something new and pointed straight toward the future, or curled up like a quizzical phrase. Here, Coleman’s title begs both ideas. And the music announced his pianoless quartet setup: the harmonics of chord changes alone would no longer confine Coleman’s music, replaced by his own personal science bent on liberation. The way Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry shadow each other’s lines and exchange ideas, the process sounds closer to pure joy than hard science. Nearly a half-century later, it still sounds fresh.
Listen Alone In San Francisco
Artist: Thelonious Monk
Release Date: 1959
The hippest, most addictive thing I got turned onto in college was Monk’s music. I’d never heard anything like it, and it opened up a whole new idea for me of how the piano could sound and of what music could do: his compositions, his every arpeggio or tone cluster, contained math, R&B, Abstract Expressionism and slapstick humor. I went on to discover a world of jazz musicians, all touched directly or indirectly by Monk, but none who sounded quite like him. And though Monk recorded quite a few notable albums leading stellar bands, though his music led others to play with a special insight and cohesion, it’s Monk alone at the piano that I crave: Straight, no chaser. Here, early in his career, by himself, Monk transforms San Francisco’s Fugazi Hall with the unique architecture of his piano playing. This isn’t what all of jazz sounds like: It’s what the world of jazz after Monk looks like.
Listen Bill Evans Trio: Sunday At The Village