DELUXE VINYL BOX SET OFFERS FAITHFULLY REPRODUCED JACKETS
AND LABELS
Craft Recordings, the Catalog Division
of Concord Music is proud to announce the release of Thelonious Monk’s The
Complete Prestige 10-Inch LP Collection. Due out December 15th, the
limited-edition box set includes all five of the 10” vinyl LPs which the
pianist recorded for the jazz label, spanning 1952 to 1954. Each album has been
faithfully reproduced – from the jacket design to the LP labels – while the
audio has been carefully restored and remastered by Joe Tarantino from the
original analog tapes, with lacquer cutting by George Horn and Anne-Marie
Seunram at Fantasy Studios. Rounding out the collection is a booklet with new
liner notes by Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and
Times of an American Original. The Complete Prestige 10-Inch LP Collection will
also be released in high-res and standard audio formats across all streaming
and digital platforms.
Thelonious Sphere Monk (1917-1982), who would have turned
100 this year, remains one of the most highly regarded jazz artists in history,
known for his unique style on and off the piano. Monk was a rule-breaker,
pushing the limits of his genre, with his dissonant chords, unconventional
melodies and progressive rhythms. Initially dismissed an eccentric by the
musical elite, Monk stood his ground, and came to be celebrated for his
complexities; considered by many to be a genius.
However, in the early ’50s, the artist was still struggling
to find critical and commercial acceptance. In his liner notes, Robin D. G.
Kelley refers to this era as the “golden years in terms of [Monk’s] creative
output” but, he adds, “these were also dark times.” Following an unjust run-in
with the law, the jazz musician’s cabaret card was revoked, preventing him from
performing at New York clubs, and restricting his income. The artist’s fortune
began to change, though, in 1952, when Prestige Records’ founder Bob Weinstock
offered Monk a recording contract. Weeks later, the Thelonious Monk Trio ̶ consisting of Art Blakey (as well as Max
Roach on select tracks) on drums and Gary Mapp on bass, went to work in the
studio, with a young Ira Gitler as producer. The resulting 10-inch LP release
was Thelonious. By the fall of 1953, Monk returned to the studio, this time
with a quintet, for Thelonious Monk Quintet Blows For LP, featuring Sonny
Rollins on tenor saxophone. Thelonious Monk Quintet and Thelonious Plays
followed in 1954. In the final 10-inch LP in this collection, recorded in
October of 1954, Monk was actually a last-minute replacement for Elmo Hope at a
Sonny Rollins session. But he ultimately received co-billing on the resultant
10” LP release, Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk. Also produced by Gitler, the
LP includes an 11-minute jam of Vincent Youmans’ “More Than You Know” which, as
Kelley puts it, became “the session’s masterpiece, a sublime dialogue between
two great masters of modern music.”
These early albums in The Complete Prestige 10-Inch LP
Collection offer an intriguing look into this distinctive and resolute artist
before he found full acclaim and acceptance, and feature an impressive
collective personnel that includes some of jazz’s finest. “Listening to these
tracks more than sixty years after they were recorded, it’s stunning how
compelling, modern and original Monk’s music still sounds, even through the
filter of 21st-century ears,” observes the collection’s producer, Nick Phillips.
“That’s the mark of a true musical genius, indeed.”
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