Alice Tully Hall, (Jazz at Lincoln Center)
Home of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
1,275 seats...4,192 pipe organ (imagine Monk on *that* thing!)

The Octet:
Marcus Roberts, Guest Musical Director and Piano
Charles McPherson, Alto Sax
Wess Anderson, Alto Sax
Teddy Edwards, Tenor Sax
Ryan Kisor, Trumpet
Vincent Gardner, Trombone
Rodney Whitaker, Bass
Herlin Riley, Drums

Wow, great seats, huh?  First row, Loge, right in the center...Man, jazz audiences love to arrive either just in time or a little late ..hah ...Oh now look at it fill up..just about 5 after or so...Here come the musicians on stage ...dressed to the nines....Wow..the place is packed!...maybe 10 empty seats.... The marketing director is going to say something.....Ah ..well..too bad ..Milt Jackson was suppossed to be a special guest, but having surgery..but she says "Bags" will be back and swingin soon... Nice how Marcus is introducing each guy...big hand for McPherson and Teddy Edwards, at 73.

Here we go.......Ah yeah..Jackie-ing (arr.Marcus Roberts)...Terrific, horn orchestration man!  Using those long Monk chords... tight orchestration...what a  sound....!...I like the trumpet  and Wess is getting some cool overtones from a soprano on this piece ..now they are going right into misterioso...that simple almost child-like melody but Monk put those really cool, way out chords over the melody and the horns are playing them where usually only the piano goes..Yeah...Little Rootie Tootie (arr. Paul Jeffrey, Marcus Roberts)....you know, Marcus is really doing a good job walkin the tightrope...he doesn't want to appear to be imitating Monk and yet, he can't just throw Monk out the window...toughest row to hoe for a pianist interpreting Monk me thinks...

Oh, this is my favorite Monk ballad, notwithstanding Round Midnight and Ruby, My Dear...Ugly Beauty.....let's just listen..My God, what a gorgeous alto solo by McPherson...just beautiful....he really captured the melody and played with it just right...wonderful timbre...and Gardner on the 'bone ...his tone is so mellow and round and he plays the melody so perfectly...no scooping...This piece really sounds good on trombone ...Marcus really sounds like Monk now on Trinkle Tinkle...the horns are laying out....you know you have to play that head as it is written and boy what a bitch that must be...yet, his improvising now is his own..a good combo of straight Monk and Marcus then being himself...Let's Cool One (arr. Wycliffe Gordon) ...nice...Raise Four...Marcus used this the other nite at the Talk ...real up...Here comes the last piece before intermission...Green Chimneys (arr. Marcus Roberts)...Wait...Marcus is saying there is a guest artist for this one...I'll bet...yeah...that special trumpet is unmistakeable...go on..wail Wynton...this piece has a Klesmer sound to me...am I nuts? Now they are all really wailing!!!!!......Whew ...what a great first half! Some horns laid out on some pieces and then back for others and you really got a sense of the different sax styles ...and tones...right...The only drawback was that guy on my left who started talking about how Kisor sounded like Lee Morgan...maybe so, but this guy had one too many of Sheri's Jazz-l martinis.  Boy did he reek..I'm glad he left before the set ended...hope he doesn't come back.

Yeah good idea.. we'll stretch our legs...You think the Baroness is here? I think she's still alive or was it she died recently..I forget..maybe we'll see her....Really a mixed crowd...older people...folks in their 20s...black, white...asian...Monk appeals to everyone...Nice they let me leave some Jazz Cares leaflets on the table...There is a community spirit kind of thing in jazz ...a devotion.  There's the gong...

I love this piece too...We See (arr. Marcus Roberts)...da.. dadedadeda..dum dum dum dum dum dum dum..da da da dda da da dda da da dda...love that head! Great orchestration again...weird chords ..ala Monk...I'll be whistling that all night..  Marcus is saying no jazz concert is complete without a blues..Mmm a Monk..no,a "jazz" classic...Straight, No Chaser (arr. Miles Davis) ..true to the form ...a quartet with Teddy Edwards on tenor...at 73 he is I guess around the age Rouse would be now if he had lived.  He played it damned nice...especially when he gets really blusey...His tone is more Bean than Trane. Brilliant Corners  ...the title tune from the album that really was Monk's breakout release in 1956.  This drummer is no Max..(I checked it, Dr Fed )  but is adequate. The horns sound fine, as does Marcus behind with those Monkian chords...and the guys are really good when they go into the double time ...no time lost here...and that would sure be easy to do on this piece. Reflections...pretty melody..again ..a favorite Monk ballad of mine....Hackensack...Am I nuts, or doesn't Monk use this title for "Well, You Needn't" sometimes...wasn't there some kind of jazz minutiae thing about this?....Now everyone wails on Humph... the closing number....(I could have used just a tad more passion on this and some of the other numbers tho)  A nice battle of the saxes between Wess Anderson and Charles McPherson.

Only a few fainthearted souls leaving...everyone else applauding and screaming for more...Ah I knew it...an encore...I'll bet either "Epistrophy", Monk's usual closing theme, or maybe "Rhythm-a-ning",  a really upbeat happy feel...nope...it's back to the Brilliant Corners album for Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues Are....

...and I'm 17 again, wearing out the grooves of my vinyl copy of the Brilliant Corners album on my piece-of-crap "Victrola" in my parents living room in Brooklyn...listening to Bolivar Blues and Oscar Pettiford play that great bass solo... Whitaker was good too tonight...I'll bet he listened over and over to that solo....Now the lights are going up and everyone is standing and screaming and applauding.....

A crowd of 1,200 or so people is spilling out from Alice Tully Hall onto Broadway...not after hearing some beautifully performed works by Vivaldi or Bach interpreted by a world renown string quartet...No, not this time...this time it's after hearing The High Priest...Thelonious Sphere Monk....interpreted by some damn good musicians....playing Monk...playing Jazz...Keeping the faith...Playing the music.

Epilog: Ahh, a nice cool evening ....I'll take the downtown "D" and you take the uptown "A" so we can walk together to the station....My train is crowded...but I don't care...I'm humming and whistling "We See" ..I look up and see the "Poetry In Motion" poster that NYC Transit has up on a lot of trains....I'm reading it..."Happiness" by Stephen Dunn (b 1939)..."A state you must dare not enter with hopes of staying..."

Well you couldn't prove that by me tonight!

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