| Note: The following is a review of the LP "Thelonious," one of four lps that Rear View Mirror was re-issued from. |
| CADENCE
The American Review of Jazz & Blues January 1988 BUELL NEIDLINGER / MARTY KRYSTALL, THELONIOUS, K2B2 2569. Thelounious/Trinkle Tinkle/Bya-Ya / Crepesclue with Nellie / Locomotive / Who Knows? / Ask Me Now / Jackie-ing 35:35 Neidlinger, b ; Marty Krystall, ts, u; Billy Osborne, rl; John Beasley, p. 11/86, Burbank |
| In interviews (6/86), Buell Neidlinger is brazenly arrogant, a supremely talented fellow who challenges you to catch him fucking up. So it seemed a surprise he'd appear to hop on the Monk bandwagon. The flood of Monk tributes has ultimately proved rather dispiriting since the vast majority of Monk covers have missed the point that it's less why you play than how you play it. A Steve Lacv cut chosen at random will pay more eloquent tribute to Thelonious than Joe Jackson or Donald Fagen playing one of his songs.
Neidlinger's Thelonious does indeed seem inspired by the Monk fad; it's as if he's heard enough and wants to silence the pretenders with an objec lesson. This is how Monk played: with the lively tub-thumping rhythmic bottom Monk's quartet had, but with its own ensemble flavor. The vexing thing about playing Monk correctly is that you have to bend some in his direction (but not too far). If the genius of his compositions was how seamlessly they flowed in to and out of his improvising, then a band pianist like John Beasley, hoping to emulate the same integration of heads with solos, may sensibly adopt some of Monk's stride/splank piano gestures - just as the Buell's plump bass walks and Osborne's authoritative mini-kit thumping show respect for Monk's rhythm men. Yet none of the three gives up his own identity and resorts to impersonating a predecessor. We used to read the curious argument that Monk was a great pianist but that anyone who adopted quirks plainly derived from his were misguided - as if pianists were to be denied the same fun, or as if the writers heard Monk's music so badly they couldn't understand how its elements could be abstracted. Now the Monkish individualists are everywhere, from Stan Tracey and Andrew Hill to Terry Adams and John Beasley. Thelonious sounds Monkian without sounding like Monk. Krystall's tongue-in-cheek saxophonevoice is perfect for the composer's Charles Addams melodies, yet the way he sculpts the pitch of each note is his own. But perhaps most gratifying about Thelonious is how directly they confront Monk the composer. Krystall's slithering emphasizes Nellie 's serpentine twists; the whole band gives Jackie-ing. a brittle percussive edge." Locomotive" and"Who Knows" are characteristic Monk but seldom played. Still, despite successes like this one, I'd vote for a Monk recording moratorium. Living composers (Andrew Hill for one) deserve similar tribute and study-now, while it'll do them some good. Kevin Whitehead |
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