Thelonious Monk - Bremen 1965 [2LP]

Recorded for Radio Bremen in 1965 and first issued in 2025, Bremen 1965 catches Thelonious Monk's quartet in peak touring form across two LPs.

By the mid-sixties Monk was no longer the misunderstood outsider of the bebop years but a celebrated figure filling concert halls across Europe. Charlie Rouse had been his tenor saxophonist for years and knew the leader's angular language inside out, while bassist Larry Gales and drummer Ben Riley were newer arrivals who had quickly found their footing in that famously unpredictable world.

"Criss Cross" opens the set with its jagged, stop-start theme, and "Well You Needn't" swings with sly, off-kilter confidence. "Rhythm-a-Ning" gives Rouse room to run, his dry, woody tone weaving around Monk's percussive chords, and "Epistrophy" turns up twice, first mid-set and again to close the night. Gales and Riley sound especially lively, keeping the pulse supple while Monk drops dissonant clusters exactly where he means them.

The sound is clear and close, with the feel of a studio broadcast rather than a noisy club, so every hesitation, every wrong-sounding note that turns out to be perfectly right, comes through in fine detail.

For Monk devotees, a previously unheard concert from this lineup is a genuine find, and a welcome reminder of how much joy lived inside his strange, beautiful music.