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T. S. Monk Sextet at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco (2007)

by
Harry S. Pariser

The T. S. Monk Sextet is making its first-ever San Francisco appearance at the Great American Music Hall.* Its bandleader, the ebullient and loquacious drummer T. S Monk, is the son of legendary pianist Thelonious Monk. He last performed the previous year in the company of pianist Jason Moran (link to review) in a tribute to his father’s appearance at Town Hall; Thelonious would have been ninety years old this year. This time around, he’s appearing at a more intimate venue and with his band, many of whose members have been with the ensemble for years. Downbeat readers voted Monk on Monk, the 1997 tribute album to his father, the year’s top album in its Reader’s Poll. The New York Jazz Awards award it the “Recording of the Year.”

The band opens with "Chester’s Delight", and the tune’s first solo is by trumpeter Tanya Darby who is then followed by another female, the pianist Helen Sung, a remarkably gifted young musician.

 

Donning sunglasses and wearing gold earrings, Monk, drumstick in hand, then comes to the mike at the number’s end. “You know how I dig these people. Randy Weston used to come to my father’s house, and I used to run to the closet and cry. I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t show you what the Quintet does with Monk.”

Next, Monk’s “Think of One” has a bass solo by Dave Jackson and is closed by a Monk drum solo. Several more tunes follow along with more spirited discourse from Monk. Alto sax player Bob Porcelli and tenor sax player Willie Williams, whom T. S. maintains “grew up on Teddie Pendergast,” turn in stellar performances. Not everybody is as thrilled with the music as I am. A few tables over a dressed up black woman with a black-and-white striped blouse checks her e-mail.

The band closes out with Monk’s “Little Rootie Tootie” with T. S. maintaining that “This tune is hard for everybody, but it is particularly hard for everybody.” The encore number is Monk’s “Skippy.”

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*It’s a rare jazz date for the hall. During its days as an independent, the GAMH once had jazz shows regularly and the likes of Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society, Charlie Haden’s Jazz Liberation Orchestra, Dave Holland, the late Don Cherry, and others of similar magnitude once appeared here. Now owned by Slim’s, a competing club with inferior ambience, it mainly now hosts contemporary pop acts. While the atmosphere is elegant, the fact that beer is served in environmentally-degrading plastic cups takes the mood down a notch for those who appreciate their $5 draft in a glass.


 

 

Useful for residents and visitors alike, Barbados Travel Companion, our new travel app to Barbados, supplies comprehensive information along with pictures, maps and links to hundreds of videos and relevant websites.

There is an Android version and an iTunes version.

St. John Visitors:

Please check out Explore St. John, our new travel app to St. John, which supplies comprehensive information (useful for residents and visitors alike) along with pictures, maps and links to hundreds of videos and relevant websites.

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