Thelonious Monk’s 1955 album Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington demonstrates both a fluid definition of the “mainstream ” as it emerged in the mid-1950s, as well as some of the ways Monk responded musically to its commercializing forces. During this decade, musicians and critics alike were formulating a new definition of the jazz mainstream that accounted for styles that fell between traditional swing and modern bebop styles. Monk’s producers, Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer Jr., were sensitive to the new commercial pressures of mainstream appeal, and Monk’s “Ellington album” was a tool for drawing a wider audience to an artist whose reputation for difficulty was well-known. The result, however, was not an ideal synthesis of old and new styles. There are moments of musical interest, as in the clever harmonies in the introduction to “Mood Indigo” and the impressive double-time solo on “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.” In general, however, Monk plays with the detachment of someone who, as Keepnews suggested, had never seen the pieces before. This can be interpreted as a simple lack of familiarity with the music (however unlikely, since the songs were chosen for their popularity), or else as an expression of protest to commercializing forces. Although the Ellington album—by admission of the producers—was an attempt to bring Monk’s music to a mainstream audience, the lack of any drastic stylistic evolution between prior and subsequent albums Monk recorded with Prestige and Riverside indicates that it is not Monk’s music that changes over the course of the 1950s, but rather its critical reception and the definition of the jazz “mainstream.”

Works: Thelonious Monk (performer): These Foolish Things [1952 version] (235), Black and Tan Fantasy [1955 version] (237), It Don’t Mean a Thing [1955 version] (238-9), Mood Indigo [1955 version] (238), I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart [1955 version] (238-9), Solitude [1955 version] (239), Sophisticated Lady [1955 version] (239).

Sources: Duke Ellington: Sophisticated Lady (228), I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good) (228), Mood Indigo (228), It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing (228), I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart (228), Caravan (229), Black and Tan Fantasy (228).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington