It's 1957, and You Are There

POPULAR MUSIC AINU JAZZ

by Charles M. Young and Francis Davis

IT’S 1957, AND YOU ARE THERE BRAD’S A PEARL

he place to be in New York in the summer and fall of 1957 was the Five Spot Cafe, a hangout for painters and writers that had only recently started booking jazz. The attraction was a quartet led by the pianist and composer Thelonious Monk (then on the verge of public recognition, after a decade of being considered a fringe eccentric), featuring the tenor saxophonist John Coltrane (then fresh from a few years with Miles Davis, and on the verge of some pretty big things himself).

This was a band that entered the studio only long enough to record half an album, before passing into legend. But The Thelonious Monk Quartet Live at the Five Spot, featuring John Coltrane—a new Blue Note release of an on-the-spot tape made

by Naima Coltrane, the saxophonist’s first wife—finally lets the rest of us hear what Monk and Coltrane were up to. There is uncertainty about who the bassist and drummer are, although Blue Note lists Ahmad Abdul-Malik and Roy Haynes. The recording is marred by crowd noises, electronic crackle, and a frustrating dropout during Monk’s rhythmically criss-crossed choruses on “Epistrophy.” But all of this ceases to matter whenever Coltrane works up a full head of steam to Haynes’s drumming, or whenever Monk engages in his trademark harmonic semaphore to send Coltrane on his way. Such moments are plentiful, and they are electrifying.

Besides, how often are we given an opportunity to eavesdrop on history? —F.D.