Palo Alto

The concert’s backstory unspools like a modern feel-good movie: The jazz titan agreed to play a high school auditorium at the behest of eager student and future concert promoter Danny Scher,... — Downbeat, January 2021, 4 and a half out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 31st Jul 2020
Catalogue No: 0711285
Label: Impulse! Records
Length: 47 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

25th September 2020
Presto Recordings of the Year

Winner 2020

Monk, T: Ruby, My Dear

Work length7:00

Thelonious Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales (bass), Ben Riley (drums)

Monk, T: Well, You Needn't

Work length13:16

Thelonious Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales (bass), Ben Riley (drums)

Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh: Don't Blame Me

Work length6:36

Thelonious Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales (bass), Ben Riley (drums)

Monk, T: Blue Monk

Work length14:01

Thelonious Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales (bass), Ben Riley (drums)

Monk, T: Epistrophy

Work length4:25

Thelonious Monk (piano), Ben Riley (drums), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales (bass)

Art Fitch, Kay Fitch, Herbert C. Lowe: I Love You Sweetheart Of All My Dreams

Work length2:02

Thelonious Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Larry Gales (bass), Ben Riley (drums)

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Recording of the Week, Thelonious Monk Quartet at Palo Alto

25th September 2020

A unique window into a moment in time; the Thelonious Monk Quartet live a school hall in 1968, at a gig arranged by a 15-year-old, and recorded by the janitor! The results more than live up to the backstory.

➢ After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, racial tensions across the country rose. Palo Alto, a largely white college town in California, was not immune to the events of the day. Danny Scher, a rising junior at Palo Alto High School, had a dream to bring Thelonious Monk to Palo Alto to perform and help bring about racial unity in his community as well as raise funds for his school’s International Committee.

➢ After somehow securing Monk’s services to perform on Sunday, October 27, Scher initially had trouble selling tickets and convincing people that Monk was even going to show up.

➢ With many twists and turns along the way and several hundred people waiting in the school’s parking lot to await Monk’s arrival before purchasing tickets, the concert eventually happened and was a triumph in more ways that Monk or Scher could have imagined. This is a recording of that historic concert.

➢ The band is Thelonious Monk – piano / Charlie Rouse – tenor saxophone / Larry Gales – bass / Ben Riley – drums.

Reviews

January 2021

The concert’s backstory unspools like a modern feel-good movie: The jazz titan agreed to play a high school auditorium at the behest of eager student and future concert promoter Danny Scher, who, for one afternoon, managed to unite the racially divided California communities of Palo Alto and East Palo Alto through music. Monk’s playing that day was transcendent, and, more than 50 years on, it still conjures feelings of goodwill.

Palo Alto

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Recording of the Week, Thelonious Monk Quartet at Palo Alto

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