Billboard : 10/16/1961

The highly popular and musically productive combination of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk make up three tracks of this new LP which should be a must for most modern jazz buyers. Monk and ‘Trane are joined by Shadow Wilson and Wilbur Ware on drums and bass for three tracks. The rest of the album (another three tracks) is composed of alternate masters from a previous Riverside LP “Monk’s Music” featuring other jazz stars along with Coltrane and Monk.

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Cashbox : 10/28/1961

When Monk and Coltrane get together there’s fireworks. Add such figures as Coleman Hawkins, Art Blakey, Shadow Wilson and Gigi Gryce and you have a real head-on collision. Needless to say, there are some very unusual moments in this record. Generally, the package will appeal greatly to the most modern of jazz fans. Sessions date from 1957 (when Monk and Coltrane were teamed at the Five Spot) and there will be historical interest here too, especially for the late Shadow Wilson’s parts.

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American Record Guide
Martin Williams : June, 1962

Recently I lamented in these pages that Monk’s 1957 Five Spot cafe quartet (Monk, Coltrane, Wilbur Ware on bass, Shadow Wilson on drums) was not represented on recordings. They are on three numbers here, and Trinkle Tinkle, except that its melody is perhaps a bit too pianistic, is almost as good, almost as exciting a discovery, as the music one heard from these men in the club. from these men in the club. Further, the difficult simplicity of Monk’s music disciplined Coltrane as few things have done since. Completing the set is a ten-minute Monk solo blues, that moves beautifully from percussiveness to lyricism and back again, and some alternate takes from a Monk Septet session, some of which have solos by Ware and Coltrane.

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Audio
Charles A. Robertson : February, 1962

As contract restrictions were never cleared away to permit a location recording at New York’s Five Spot Cafe when Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane played there in 1957, it was thought until now that no tangible memento of the historic meeting existed. Luckily, Riverside slipped the original quartet into Reeves Sound Studios long enough for at least three numbers in stereo, and removal of the last legal block finally brings about the release of the next best thing to a recording made on the spot. Hearing the group in its natural habitat four years ago was an experience few will forget. The sound and the place went together, or as J.J. Johnson describes it, “Since Charlie Parker, the most electrifying sound that I’ve heard in contemporary jazz was Coltrane playing with Monk at the Five Spot. It was incredible, like Diz and Bird.”

Apart from Coltrane’s heralded “sheets of sound,” the entire group did things with sound unheard of before or since. Anyone who was there should be able to select the right volume setting to accurately recreate the sharp impact of the interplay between tenor sax and Monk’s piano. Others less fortunate should be advised that listening at more than a comfortable room level is necessary if the same kinetic effect is to be achieved at home. Stereo also helps, and Jack Higgins engineered the date with due regard for the proper placement of Shadow Wilson, drums, and Wilbur Ware, bass, to ensure a realistic balance. Three alternate masters unearthed from other sessions fill out the set, so it looks as though Riverside has nothing more by the quartet hidden away. Besides writing all the material, Monk plays nearly ten minutes of unaccompanied piano on Functional.

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San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, CA)
Jim Angelo : 11/11/1961
Album of the Week

Dating from 1957 are the six jazz gems in this collection, three being backed by bass and drum only (Ruby My Dear, Trinkle Tinkle, Nutty); two bolstered by additional horns (Off Minor, Epistrophy); and one offering being just the solo piano of Monk. (The added horn men in the second group are Coleman Hawkins and Gigi Gryce, reeds; and Ray Copeland, trumpet.) Both Monk and Coltrane have done (and are still doing) much to shape the form of contemporary music. This album depicts several important segments of their contributions and should be in the record library of every jazzophile.

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San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 11/26/1961
Album of the Week

Two of the people without whom modern jazz would be quite a different proposition entirely, are Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, piano and tenor. In 1957 they worked together for several months and recorded several tracks for Riverside at that time which are now made available for the first time on Riverside’s subsidiary label, Jazzland. They are historic recordings and an essential part of a basic modern jazz library. Monk is one of the most important of all jazz figures and an acquaintance with his playing and his conception of jazz is greatly rewarding. The rest of this excellent LP consists of three alternate masters of previously released tracks on which both Monk and Coltrane appear. This is one of the best modern jazz albums of the year.

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Saturday Review
Mait Edey : 11/11/1961

The quartet that Monk brought into New York clubs during the latter half of 1957 was the most rewarding group he has ever led on a regular basis. It played demanding music singularly limited in color and dynamics, but full of intricate harmonic explorations. Three tracks here are by that quartet – Monk, Coltrane, Wilbur Ware, and Shadow Wilson. Two tracks, by a septet including Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Ray Copeland, and Art Blakey, are alternate and generally inferior takes of pieces which appeared on an earlier Monk LP (Riverside RLP 242). Functional is a piano solo. All the compositions are Monk’s, and all reflect his customary adventurous eccentricity.

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Van Nuys News (Van Nuys, CA)
Mike Davenport : 10/26/1961

John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk are two present day jazz musicians I would place in the genuine category. What is perhaps most important for our purposes is that their individual brands of genius complement each other.

I think the most significant period in ‘Trane’s development was the six months he spent with Monk, and at which time these three selections were recorded (in 1957).

Monk is probably the only completely compositional, pianist playing today. Rather than using a tune as a point
of departure for his improvisation, he uses it as a basis for a series of variations, both harmonically and melodically.

On hearing a Monk piece for the first time it is sometimes difficult to tell where the tune ends and his improvisation begins.

Monk’s imaginative use of harmonics gave “Trane confidence and incentive in his own explorations.

I think that while working with Monk ‘Trane reached a high in creativity that he has not hit since, as you will hear on these three numbers.

The other three tracks in the album, alternate takes from other Monk sessions, are excellent, but almost insignificant in comparison to the three quartet tracks, which will certainly go down in jazz history.

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Down Beat : 12/21/1961
Martin Williams : 5 stars

To spell out the contents for a bit, Functional is a remarkable, unaccompanied piano solo. It is an alternate version to the one included on Thelonious Himself (Riverside 235) and so different from the original that I think it should have been given a different title.

Off Minor and Epistrophy are alternate and briefer versions from the septet date that produced Monk’s Music (Riverside 242). The former has very good solos by Hawkins, Copeland, and Monk, the latter solos by Coltrane and Copeland.

Nutty, Ruby, and Trinkle are by Monk. Coltrane, Ware, and Wilson – the quartet that had an almost legendary stay at the Five Spot in New York during the summer of 1957, a prelude to Monk’s rediscovery as a major jazzman and to his current popularity and surely one of the most important (and exhilarating) events in jazz in recent years.

These three selections were recorded and the tapes were labeled “for posterity” and set aside until contractual conflicts had been resolved, permitting their release now. They are strong experiences, and if they are not as good as the performances one heard those summer nights at the Five Spot, they are nevertheless exceptional jazz.

Each member of that quartet played with great enthusiasm and at the peak of his own abilities, and through Monk’s music each man was discovering and expanding his potential almost nightly.

Monk and Coltrane had exceptional emotional rapport. Technically, on the other hand, they were superb contrasts. Coltrane’s techniques are obvious, Monk’s more subtle. At the same time that Coltrane, with his showers of notes and his “sheets of sound,” seemed to want to shatter jazz rhythms into an evenly spaced and constant array of short notes, Monk seemed to want to break them up subtly and phrase with a new freedom. Monk is a melodist: his playing is linear and horizontal. Coltrane is an arpeggio player; his approach is vertical. He is a kind of latter-day Coleman Hawkins.

But even Coltrane’s earlier solo on Epistrophy shows that he found enormous harmonic stimulation in Monk’s music – he seemed to know not only where Monk was but where he was headed, as very few players did. But again, as the quartet tracks show (particularly Ruby), Coltrane also knew that Monk’s melodies are very strong and important and that it isn’t enough merely to run their changes. Over and over again here, Monk’s materials discipline Coltrane and order his explorations in a way that no material he has since dealt with seems to have done.

Ware is, like Monk, a melodist, and he also finds surprise twists even in the most traditional approach. Wilson, whose early work had the smooth evenness of a Jo Jones, responds to Monk’s hints with enthusiastic and appropriate polyrhythmic patterns.

Monk also got a remarkable variety of textures from this group – by playing with Coltrane, by playing contrapuntally against Colirane, by laying out and leaving Coltrane to Ware and Wilson, sometimes predominately to one of them, sometimes to both equally.

Some details: On Nutty, after Coltrane has strayed further and further into elaborate harmonic implications of the piece, Monk enters for his solo with, as usual, a simple and eloquent re-establishment of the theme in paraphrase. He does the same on Trinkle, with an even more subtle recasting of that intricate melody.

Ruby is a knowingly embellished version of a lovely piece. The end of Coltrane’s opening solo has a particularly beautiful (and Monkish) effect of suspension, and Monk’s decision to begin his solo with lightly implied double-timing was a near master-stroke of meaningful contrast.

The best quartet performance is Trinkle. The one flaw is that the line itself, unlike most of Monk’s melodies, is a bit pianistic in conception to be fully effective on saxophone. But the spontaneous interplay between Monk and Coltrane in Trinkle is quite wonderful, as is Monk’s intuitive logic in knowing just when to stop it and let Coltrane stroll along against Ware and Wilson. Ware’s solo is good (and I’m afraid makes one long for those evenings when he would spin several effortless choruses in each piece.)

As I said, this solo Functional is quite different from the previous version. On the earlier releases, Monk manages to play variations on one of the simplest and most percussive of all blues phrases in a nine-minute tour de force of cohesive imaginative invention. Here we hear nearly 10 minutes of Monk playing the blues in a dramatic yet lyric curve of melody.

Other delights: the interplay of Ware behind Monk on Off Minor. Copeland’s solo on the same piece; in his way he knows the relationship of parts of Monk’s music, of melody to harmony, as well as Coltrane does.

Nostalgia can corrupt memory, of course, but even allowing for that, I don’t think these quartet performances are up to the level one heard at the Five Spot from this group. However, Trinkle very nearly is. The other two are fine performances. I think that in this way Epistrophy is excellent, too. And Functional is a near masterpiece.

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Liner Notes by Ira Gitler

Certain combinations of men have been leaving indelible marks on the music called jazz since its beginning. Some formed a lifetime association; others were together only for a briet period. Some actively shaped the course of jazz; others affected it more osmotically. All have had one thing in common; they produced music of lasting value.

One historic teaming was that of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane at New York’s Five Spot Cafe, beginning in the summer of 1957. Although the group remained together for only a half-year, those of us who heard it will never forget the experience. There were some weeks when I was at the Five Spot two and three times, staying most of the night even when I intended just to catch a set or two. The music was simultaneously kinetic and hypnotic. J.J. Johnson has compared it to the mid-Forties union of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. “Since Charlie Parker, the most electrifying sound that I’ve heard in contemporary jazz was Coltrane playing with Monk at the Five Spot. … It was incredible, like Diz and Bird,” Jay said.

Monk and Coltrane complemented each other perfectly. The results of this successful musical alliance were beneficial to both. In this setting, Monk began to receive the brunt of a long-overdue recognition. On the other hand, Coltrane’s talent, set in such a fertile environment, bloomed like a hibiscus. Trane’s comments in a Down Beat article (September 29, 1960), clearly describe how he reveres Monk. “Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way – through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn’t know about at all,” he stated.

Later in the piece, ‘Trane added: “I think Monk is one of the true greats of all time. He’s a real musical thinker – there’re not many like him. I feel myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him. If a guy needs a little spark, a boost, he can just be around Monk, and Monk will give it to him.”

Down Beat 09/29/1960 : Coltrane on Coltrane Story

Monk certainly brought ‘Trane out beautifully. It was in this period that John began to experiment with what at the time I called “sheets of sound.” Actually, he was thinking in groups of notes rather than one note at a time. Monk’s practice of “laying out” allowed ‘Trane to “stroll” against the pulse of bass and drums and really develop this playing attitude on his own. Pointed examples of this can be heard here in Trinkle Tinkle and Nutty.

Toward the latter part of ’57, Ahmed Abdul-Malik took over Wilbur Ware’s bass post. But in the three selections here, the original quartet is intact. Ware and Monk had played together on one of Thelonious’ visits to Chicago, and when Wilbur migrated to New York he was Monk’s choice for the group. I find no coincidence in Martin Williams’ statement that Ware “…has something of the same basic interest in displacement of accents and rhythmic shiftings and in unusual sequence of harmonics that one hears in Thelonious Monk.” Listen to Ware’s solo on Trinkle Tinkle for evidence.

Shadow Wilson was about 2 ½ months short of his 40th birthday when he died on July 11, 1959, and another of jazz’s tremendous talents had left the scene far too early. A great big-band drummer, Wilson had performed most notably with Count Basie and Woody Herman (the Herman band once voted for him, en masse, when a replacement was needed for Dave Tough), but he was equally capable of ministering to the specific needs of a small group. His aware accenting on Trinkle Tinkle shows how well he understood Monk’s music and his nourishing beat, here and on Nutty, is a rare combination of swing and taste.

As we were to regret the passing of Shadow Wilson in 1959, many of us, in a different way, bemoaned the demise of that particular Monk quartet at the end of 1957. The fact that the group had presumably not been recorded was especially distressing. Now we have three gems to hold in our hands and enjoy, facet by facet. All are Monk compositions and it is interesting to note that they were originally recorded in trio contexts by him:

Ruby My Dear, which I once described as “sentiment without sentimentality,” was first done around 1948, although it was probably written several years before. Coltrane states its tender beauty with a tone that helps transmit the sadness pervading the melody. Monk’s half-chorus says more than most pianists do in a whole LP.

Trinkle Tinkle originated in 1952. There is some fascinating interplay between piano and tenor in ‘Trane’s first improvised chorus. This is followed by some fantastic Coltrane in the “strolling” section. If you close your eyes, it is easy to imagine a cello or viola being bowed by a demonic force of vivid imagination. Thelonious rephrases his own melody in his inimitable manner before Ware’s solo.

Nutty, written in 1954, swings relaxed in an optimistic mood. Coltrane spins out his amazingly long-lined offerings, hanging them together with shorter bursts and an overall personal sense of logic. Monk again divides and subdivides his own theme, paraphrasing from one of his earlier speeches, as it were.

To round out the album, three alternate masters from previously released Monk sessions are included. Off Minor and Epistrophy were heard on Monk’s Music (Riverside RLP 242). It is stimulating to compare the different versions and how the solos vary and coincide from take to take. Off Minor has solos by Hawkins, Copeland and Monk, but the bits by Ware and Blakey are not as developed as on the original issue. Epistrophy, in the original version, featured all the horns of the septet and Monk. Here, only Coltrane and Copeland are heard in solo.

The first Functional is on Thelonious Himself (Riverside RLP 235). This version is as different in individual idea and, at the same time close in spirit to the other, as two takes can be. It almost deserves a title of its own. I only wish I had two turntables. I think the two Functionals might make a wild duet for four Monk hands.

But, as intriguing as these alternate masters are, the main attraction here is the unearthing of the quartet tracks. These are milestones in jazz history and important to every serious listener.

Steve Lacy, the soprano saxophonist who worked with Monk for 16 weeks in 1960, has said of Monk’s music: “Monk has got his own poetry and you’ve got to get the fragrance of it.”

It is obvious that in 1957, Coltrane was doing some deep breathing.