Thelonious Monk Alone In San Francisco

Thelonious Monk - Thelonious Alone In San Francisco (1959) {OJC Remasters Complete Series rel 2011, item 20of33}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 229 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 108 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 481 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit remaster
© 1959, 2011 Riverside / Concord | 0888072328440
Jazz / Bop / Modal Music / Piano

An extension of the popular Original Jazz Classics series (est. 1982), the new OJC Remasters releases reveal the sonic benefits of 24-bit remastering-a technology that didn't exist when these titles were originally issued on compact disc. The addition of newly-written liner notes further enhances the illuminating quality of the OJC Remasters reissues. "Each of the recordings in this series is an all-time jazz classic," says Nick Phillips, Vice President of Jazz and Catalog A&R at Concord Music Group and producer of the series.

Thelonious Monk - The Complete Riverside Recordings (1988) {15CD Riverside Victor Japan VDJ-25010~24 rec 1955-1961}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 4.97 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.24 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 1.71 Gb | 5% repair rar
© 1955-61, 1988 Riverside / Fantasy / Victor Japan | VDJ-25010~24
Jazz / Bop / Hard Bop / Piano

The studio and live recording sessions that Thelonious Monk cut during his six-year stay at the Riverside label are compiled over the 15 discs in the Complete Riverside Recordings. This middle era – between his early sides for Prestige and the final ones for Columbia – is generally considered Monk's most ingenious and creative period. The sessions are presented in chronological order, accurately charting the progression and diversions of one of the most genuinely enigmatic figures in popular music. The Complete Riverside Recordings explores Monk's genius with a certain degree of real-time analysis that simply listening to each of the individual albums from this era lacks.

While solo and duo recordings do not come in all sizes, they indeed have various shapes. Slam Stewart and Don Byas, as the only two musicians to make a nearly snowed-out 1945 Town Hall gig, formed an impromptu, but unquestionably musically satisfying duo (remembered largely for their lickety-split version of “I Got Rhythm”). Jim Hall and Bill Evans are dependably sublime on Undercurrent. Turning to solo work, Evans waxed Alone as a solo pianist, creatively entering a relatively crowded recorded space that also includes contributions from Thelonious Monk (Solo Monk, Alone in San Francisco), Art Tatum’s Piano Starts Here, and Ray Bryant’s Alone With the Blues, not to mention Concord’s voluminous Maybeck Recital Hall series. Solo jazz saxophone recordings, on the other hand, are few and far between, making Eric Alexander’s solo contributions to the recording here all the more unique and important. And although the living master Sonny Rollins recorded in this format (The Solo Concert), contributions here seem most often to coalesce around the avant-garde (Anthony Braxton’s For Alto and Roscoe Mitchell’s Solo Saxophone Concerts).