More than half a century after Thelonious Monk took the stage in Paris, recordings from that remarkable concert are finally being brought back into the light with the full authorization of the Monk family.
The Thelonious Monk Estate will release Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume Two on October 9, 2026, via Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment, completing a two-part presentation of recordings from Monk’s 1967 European tour. The release captures Monk with his longtime quartet — tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales and drummer Ben Riley — alongside an expanded ensemble of some of the era’s most accomplished jazz musicians.
Joining them are trumpeters Clark Terry and Ray Copeland, alto saxophonist Phil Woods, tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland.
The result is a fascinating document of Monk not simply as a pianist and composer, but as a bandleader working with a flexible, constantly shifting ensemble. After the artist introduction, all nine musicians perform “Blue Monk” and “Epistrophy Theme,” while the 15-minute-and-10-second “Oska-T” features Copeland, Woods, Griffin and Cleveland alongside Monk, Rouse, Gales and Riley. Terry appears on the first two musical selections.
The album follows Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume One, released April 24, 2026, on 180-gram vinyl and digital platforms. That first installment represented the first official Estate release of recordings from the concert after unauthorized editions had circulated for years. It received strong critical attention, with DownBeat awarding it four and a half stars and calling it “revelatory unburied treasure,” while All About Jazz praised it as a “beautifully recorded” addition to Monk’s musical story.
Taken together, the two volumes offer a rare opportunity to hear Monk stretching beyond the familiar configuration of his celebrated quartet. The Paris engagement was part of George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival touring operation, bringing together musicians with significant histories of their own — and, in several cases, previous connections to Monk.
For Monk’s son T.S. Monk, who performed in his father’s band as a drummer, these recordings illuminate an important but comparatively overlooked part of Monk’s career: his European touring with larger ensembles.
Monk’s work with Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Art Blakey and Max Roach is well documented, as is the long-running partnership between Monk and Charlie Rouse. But the larger groups that Monk assembled while touring Europe reveal another dimension of his bandleading.
Johnny Griffin and Charlie Rouse represent successive chapters of Monk’s quartet history. Griffin preceded Rouse, who ultimately became Monk’s longtime tenor saxophonist, and both musicians appeared alongside Monk elsewhere on the same European tour, including stops in Stockholm, Rotterdam, Berlin and Mainz.
The Paris recordings also demonstrate something fundamental about Monk’s approach to performance. His compositions were never intended to be treated as museum pieces. As T.S. Monk explains, his father’s music consisted of “living frameworks, not fixed objects,” with melody, harmony and space capable of changing from one performance to another.
That philosophy extended to the musicians around him.
T.S. remembers his father giving players considerable freedom about when and how they entered a performance. Monk might tell a musician, “You feel like playing? I want you to play,” or simply instruct him to “pick your spot.” The Paris ensemble reflects that philosophy, expanding and contracting as different musicians enter the musical conversation.
Yet there was one thing that remained firmly under Monk’s control.
“When it came to the rhythm, Monk set the rhythm,” T.S. recalls.
As a drummer in his father’s band, T.S. learned that playing with Monk required far more than mechanically keeping time. The rhythm section had to listen, converse and react, particularly to what was happening during a solo. Monk’s music demanded constant awareness — an ability to recognize the space between notes as much as the notes themselves.
That makes these recordings especially compelling. Listeners can hear Monk responding to Rouse, Griffin, Terry, Woods and Copeland in real time, shaping the music from behind the piano rather than simply presenting the compositions as written.
The repertoire itself spans several stages of Monk’s career.
“Epistrophy,” co-written with drummer Kenny Clarke, was one of Monk’s signature compositions. In its early days, it circulated under several titles, including “The Theme,” reflecting its role as music used by the house band at Minton’s Playhouse to open and close sets.
“Blue Monk,” first recorded in 1954, became one of the compositions Monk returned to repeatedly throughout his career. By contrast, “Oska-T” came later, with Monk first recording the piece in 1963.
T.S. remembers watching his father develop “Oska-T” at Pannonica de Koenigswarter’s home. Monk worked on the composition for “weeks and weeks,” although to his young son it appeared to consist of little more than “just these little phrases.” Decades later, those phrases would become the foundation for a 15-minute-and-10-second performance occupying the entirety of Side B.
The story behind the recordings is almost as remarkable as the music itself.
The Monk Estate began attempting to recover circulating Monk recordings in the late 1980s and 1990s. The family contacted private collectors and bootleg communities, asking that recordings be returned to Monk’s family. Over time, recordings gradually came back into the Estate’s possession.
The Paris concert was digitally remastered by legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in 2002. T.S. already knew Van Gelder, having recorded two of his own albums with the engineer.
The intention at the time was to release the Paris material. But the infrastructure required to bring an independent archival jazz project to market — manufacturing, distribution, advertising and public relations — required resources the Estate did not have.
More than two decades later, the landscape has changed dramatically.
Digital distribution and direct communication with listeners have made it possible for the Monk Estate to approach its archive on its own terms. T.S. and the family are now joined by Monk’s grandchildren in the creative, editorial, production and marketing work surrounding the archive.
T.S. describes that involvement as “three generations of stewardship.”
That phrase captures what makes Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume Two more than another archival jazz release. It is part of an ongoing effort by Monk’s family to reclaim, preserve and contextualize recordings that spent decades circulating outside their control.
T.S. characterizes the process as “bootlegging the bootleggers” — taking music that had circulated unofficially and bringing it back to listeners through an authorized release created with the direct participation of Monk’s family.
And for listeners, the reward is the chance to hear one of modern jazz’s most influential figures in an environment that feels immediate and unpredictable.
Rather than simply confirming what history already tells us about Monk, these recordings allow listeners to hear his influence being created in the moment. Pay attention not only to his solos, but to what he plays underneath the other musicians: the harmonic turns, rhythmic interruptions, carefully chosen spaces and responses to the soloists.
That is where much of Monk’s genius lives.
The compositions may be familiar, but the performances are never merely repetitions. “Blue Monk,” “Epistrophy Theme” and “Oska-T” become starting points for musical conversations among nine exceptional musicians, with Monk acting as both composer and catalyst.
As T.S. puts it, “These releases allow people to hear that influence happening in real time, on the bandstand,” rather than simply being told about it afterward.
Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume Two arrives October 9, 2026, via Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment.
The complete tracklist is:
Artist Introduction — 2:00
Blue Monk — 5:10
Epistrophy Theme — 1:20
Oska-T — 15:10
The personnel are:
Thelonious Monk — piano
Clark Terry — trumpet (“Blue Monk,” “Epistrophy Theme”)
Ray Copeland — trumpet
Phil Woods — alto saxophone
Johnny Griffin — tenor saxophone
Charlie Rouse — tenor saxophone
Jimmy Cleveland — trombone
Larry Gales — bass
Ben Riley — drums
Digital remastering was completed by Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in 2002. The recordings were originally produced by Thelonious Monk Productions, Incorporated for Thelonious Records, Incorporated.
For Monk devotees, Volume Two offers another piece of a concert that has spent decades waiting to be properly heard. For newcomers, it provides something equally valuable: a direct encounter with Monk’s extraordinary musical imagination, captured at the moment when his compositions became something larger than the notes on the page.
The music is old. The performance is timeless. And thanks to the Monk Estate, this chapter of Thelonious Monk’s story can finally be heard on his family’s terms.
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