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“Wrong is right”, Thelonious Monk

“Monk's Music was recorded in New York in the summer of 1957. The Yankees were on their way to winning yet another American League pennant. Whitey Ford and Don Larsen were on the mound. Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Mickey Mantle were in the lineup. What a team. Jazz was thriving in the city as well. Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Max Roach and Sonny Rollins were playing all over town. Monk and Coltrane made their recording at Carnegie Hall that would take the jazz world by storm almost fifty years later. What a time to be living in NYC! Baseball. Art. Fashion. Entertainment. New York was the center of the world. Period. Monk's Music was recorded in the heart of it all. Five out of the six tracks on Monk's Music are absolutely essential jazz recordings. Quite likely the only thing keeping the only other track from being considered essential is its length ("Abide with Me" clocks in at a measley 54 seconds). These are some of Thelonious Monk's best compositions, and they were recorded with a top-notch septet.”