Milt Jackson - Milt Jackson And The Thelonious Monk Quintet (1983 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP Mono)

Milt Jackson - Milt Jackson And The Thelonious Monk Quintet | Vinyl LP Mono - 1983 Japanese Blue Note Reissue (BLP-1509, Toshiba EMI)

This compilation brings together material that documents the birth of two of jazz's most important small-group concepts. The 1952 session (April 7, at WOR Studios) features Milt Jackson on vibraphone with John Lewis on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums, plus Lou Donaldson on alto saxophone. That rhythm section, minus Donaldson, would within months become the Modern Jazz Quartet, one of the longest-running and most refined groups in jazz history. Here, before they had a name, they play "Bags' Groove" (named for Jackson's nickname), and it's the first recording of a composition that Miles Davis would make famous two years later and that countless musicians have played ever since. "Lillie," "Tahiti," "What's New" and "On the Scene" come from the same session, with two alternate takes ("Lillie" and one more) included. Jackson's vibraphone playing across this date is fluid and blues-drenched, the sound that made him the defining vibraphonist of the bebop and post-bop eras.

The Monk material comes from two earlier sessions. The July 23, 1951 session (also at WOR) features Monk with Jackson, Sahib Shihab on alto, Al McKibbon on bass and Art Blakey on drums, playing "Willow Weep for Me," "Criss Cross," "Eronel" and "Four in One." The July 2, 1948 session (at Apex Studios) is from Monk's earliest Blue Note period and includes "Misterioso" and "Evidence" with John Simmons on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums. These are foundational Monk recordings, made when almost no one outside a small circle understood what he was doing. The angular melodies, the displaced rhythms, the harmonic surprises that would eventually be recognised as central to modern jazz are all here in their original form. Jackson appears on all three sessions, the connecting thread across the compilation.

This is the 1983 Japanese mono reissue on Blue Note BLP-1509, number 9 in the Blue Note BLP 1500 Series, manufactured by Toshiba EMI.