Steve Lacy Plays Monk,2: Never Released!

Last time we heard some of Steve Lacy’s first recordings, and then focused on two of his performances of Monk’s piece “Evidence.” The second version was from an album of the same name that teamed Lacy with Don Cherry, little-known bassist Carl Brown (see the info in the previous post), and Billy Higgins, in November 1961. But on October 31, 1961, the trio of Lacy, Brown and Higgins had recorded four Monk tunes. For whatever reason, Cherry was added for the album, which came out on the New Jazz division of Prestige, and the trio session, planned for another label, was never released. But now you’ll get to hear it—two tunes today and two next time.

A note about dating: On the album Evidence the date is given as November 1, 1961, the day after the trio session. But the late discographer H.L. Lindenmaier found that the correct date was November 14. This is confirmed by the recording contract. That makes more sense—it’s possible that both trio and quartet dates had been planned from the start, but most likely they needed time to choose tunes and rehearse with Cherry. After all, not one of the tunes from the trio session is duplicated on the quartet date.

Personally, I enjoy the trio because it puts the focus on Lacy’s playing, and gives us a chance to hear Brown and Higgins take some solos. Higgins had performed and recorded with Monk in San Francisco in the spring of 1960, so he surely had some ideas about how to play on Monk’s tunes.

The order that these pieces were recorded is not known for certain, but it appears that “Brilliant Corners” was up first. This had not been recorded since Monk himself documented it in a 1956 session with Sonny Rollins and Max Roach. It’s a tricky piece, not least because it goes into double tempo (aka doubletime). Jazz pieces typically stay at the same tempo throughout, but Ellington, who seems to have done most everything first, employed numerous tempo changes, for instance in his little-known “History of Jazz” in 1950 (see my post), and in his “Controversial Suite” in 1951. For Mingus, who was of course strongly influenced by Duke and had briefly played with him, changing tempos became a trademark. Well, here is Lacy’s previously unheard version of Monk’s “Brilliant Corners,” with a nice bass solo by Brown:

“Off Minor” has a particularly good Lacy solo, and a short drum solo by Higgins:

We will hear the last two pieces from this great session next time!

All the best,
Lewis

P.S. Thank you to Neil Tesser, Cheryl Pawelski, and Evan Rapport for help with this essay.